


Blue

by notenuffcaffeine



Series: Borderlines [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 3A happened but 3B didn't, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Derek, BAMF Stiles, Bounty Hunters, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hale Family Feels, I Blame Tumblr, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Pack Politics, Prompt Fic, The Alpha Pack, Werewolf Hunters, Werewolf Mates, Whump, alphas are a-holes, and alpha-pack level violence, and snarky baddies, here thar be swear words, hey look it’s sterek now!, involuntary road trip, stockholm syndrome as applied to pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 35,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That is why I ask you, now, face to face.  With no one here expecting to be impressed.  Do you consider this pack your new home?"</p><p>"Yes," said Derek. He lied.  Deucalion's eyes flashed red over a snarl.  The look didn't last long. Derek forced himself to stay calm.</p><p>"Don't do that again," Deucalion said. Derek kept quiet. The alpha stared him down until Derek looked away. "I am a patient man, Derek. Do not confuse that with stupid. You can hold your heart rate steady, but you can't mask your scent. Fisher wouldn't even fall for that and he's an imbecile."</p><p>"Then no, I don't feel part of a pack. I feel like a prisoner. Or a pet with a tracking chip," replied Derek.</p><p>"There. That was easy," said Deucalion. "Less work than trying to hide a lie.  So do us both a favor and don't pretend you know the answers I want from you. It won't save you anything."</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Following the events that dragged them away from Beacon Hills, Derek and Stiles deal with being drafted into an unwanted pack while still working to get home.  Sequel to Red & Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Over on tumblr, somebody asked me to write an explanatory fic based on this [ gifset ](http://coffeewithgrey.tumblr.com/post/83956249140) with the slight glitch being that she has not yet seen 3B. So... here's a gazillion words of an alternate universe in which 3b didn't happen but that gifset still does...
> 
>  
> 
> \----

Nearly every day since their arrival, Stiles was gone and Derek was stuck on an invisible leash. Every door had a keycard. Keycards were easily broken, doors could be forced, but the first time Derek tested that, he ended up at the wrong end of a hunter’s arsenal for the entire afternoon. He healed but not fast enough to keep Stiles from finding out about it. So Derek left the doors alone. He stayed in whatever room he was left, and usually that was Deucalion’s office. He listened openly as the man conducted business in veiled language, some wasn’t even English but Derek was surprised to find he could keep up with the changes; they had a similar upbringing if they knew the same languages, but he knew Deucalion wasn’t close with his mother’s family.

Derek stared out the big windows at the endless trees and tried not to be noticed. He listened to phone calls and debriefing reports from completed assignments, learned names and faces of the other alphas that were in and out over the week, watched papers and manilla envelopes shuffle from stack to stack until they disappeared into a file cabinet, tried to ignore the whine of the fax machine or computer printer. Deucalion had a real business going. A third of it was illegal and paid better, all of it tax free with the clientele subject to blackmailing. Derek was glad Stiles was kept away from the house during business hours because there was undoubtedly chaos to be stirred in the file cabinets and Stiles would never be able to leave it alone. Derek kept his distance because he really wanted to know what was in those cheesy-spy envelopes that were passed out every so often and he wouldn’t be caught dead asking. Stiles... would just get them both killed from his curiosity if he found out.

But despite whatever reasons Deucalion claimed to have for keeping them there, he never asked about the Argents. He didn’t ask about anything, other than sometimes what reading Derek had done lately. There was a library to select from in the room and he gave Derek permission to pass the time reading. Derek didn’t trust it, so he mostly didn’t. He watched the room and sometimes fell asleep against the window. When there was no one else in the room with them, it was boring as hell and Deucalion didn’t bother to play any kind of entertaining host.

Deucalion didn’t deal with Derek much except to break up fights, and there were a few of those. The pack didn’t like him, they made no secret of it. He was an omega in their territory, cornered against a glass wall, easy prey with baggage. Any threat against Stiles could get the rise to fight that the others wanted from him, and Deucalion heard them if he didn’t watch.

It made a man think.

When it happened three days in a row it became obvious that Derek wasn’t reacting to the threats because at the end of the day, Stiles was safe. Their talk was talk and Derek knew that. Maybe it was guilt for having gotten Stiles involved, but that only went so far; Stiles had chosen to stay, and that was what got Derek most often. All the times Stiles stuck with him stacked up. He argued because he was right - sometimes - and he wanted heard. He was annoying because he was seventeen damn years old and he didn’t know everything. He was just _Stiles_ , and Derek realized that was how Deucalion’s alpha pack could get him to fight. They knew it. He knew it. Stiles didn’t. Derek was sure it was smarter to keep it that way. It was easier to just fight back for lesser offenses and divert attention off of Stiles, react more. So long as he got the fighting out of the way by noon, he could heal and keep it from Stiles.

And then Stiles had to go and have his own mental-break right out loud and just let Derek read between the lines. They were stuck, Derek was done for, and yet somehow the alphas threats against Stiles didn’t get to him after that. He wasn’t anxious when someone mentioned Stiles. Instead, he calmed. The fights happened when someone smacked his head in clear provocation when they walked by, or stubbed a cigarette out on the back of his neck or his arm as they passed where he sat.

They were like cats, pacing and bored, and resorted to tricks to get Derek in one trouble or another; Fisher broke a statue near where Derek sat while Deucalion was out of the room and the sound brought the alpha back in a hurry, angered enough by the disrespect to discipline. Derek tried once to argue and lost, so he shucked his shirt to keep it from getting damaged and tried to keep Stiles from noticing. It took almost a week for the burn from the hunter’s wand to heal on Stiles’ ribs. It took only a few hours - usually - for Derek to recover from it. But the burn on Stiles’ shoulder was going to take a month, easy, and Derek owed him.

Anything a teenager could put up with for that long, Derek could tolerate for a few hours. And Stiles didn’t need to know about it. He couldn’t tell when Derek lied.

There was a lot that Derek didn't tell Stiles. He couldn't. The kid wouldn't understand. Derek didn't understand it well enough to explain it all. But it was just how shit worked. Stiles was smart, but there was no way for him to understand because he didn't live it. He never had.

So when Stiles wanted to pretend to be part of the alpha pack, he could do that. Derek could hate Deucalion and everything the man stood for - power without consequence, reward without risk - but he was still the strongest wolf of the territory. It was no accident or matter of convenience that Deucalion had Derek dragged to another country just to corner him about the Argents. It was strategic. Here, he had a pack. He had power behind him that Jennifer hadn't stripped from him. And Derek was alone in Deucalion's territory.

Derek could handle that. Omega wasn't a crime, it just wasn't strong. There was no defense against a full pack just by the benefit of their strength in numbers alone. But when wolves shared power, pooled resources, added all of their will to back an alpha, there was more at work than just a numbers game.

Scott had played Derek before like that, a single omega who seemed harmless and worked his way in as pack just to use Derek against the Argents. Derek gave the kid his space, believed him because he wanted to, and Scott came out on top. It hurt like hell. Now Derek knew better what to expect from Scott, maybe better than even Stiles did. Stiles didn't know what Scott was capable of as an alpha and yet he had the same idea, wanted to try to pull the same ruse on Deucalion. Derek was certain it wouldn't work. He had seen Stiles do some damn amazing things, but whatever it was he could do, it didn't apply to alpha werewolves with a pack of twenty.

Deucalion had been an alpha before Derek was born. The man held a pack when he was _blind_. To assume he couldn’t see through a game now that he had his sight back was risky. Deucalion knew how to work a pack, in ways Derek didn't have the first clue how to understand. In the end, he would not be played.

Derek found that out the day after Thanksgiving.

 

***

The routine went almost the same. They were woken up, rude and rushed, by Kenny complaining at the door. He was less than impressed by the desk that only let him open the door an inch or two. Stiles had figured out his own alarm clock and it worked exactly how they figured it would.

"Hale. Don't make me get Chuck up here for this," Kenny said, his annoyance plain.

"Told you we wanted an alarm clock," Stiles called over his shoulder at the door. He was still groggy and half asleep. Derek hid a smile and pressed his lips lazily to Stiles' jaw in congratulations for the success. Kenny shoved the door into the desk again.

"Hale!"

Derek gave up then, no less frustrated, and started to sit up. "I'll get it in a minute."

A minute turned into five because Derek wanted a shower, and Kenny seemed satisfied enough by the sound of movement in the room that he waited. When he got back in the room he found Stiles had rolled over into the warmer spot Derek had abandoned and was still asleep. He checked the uncovered burn on Stiles' shoulder to be sure the wound was still healing. They hadn't done it any favors that night, leaving it uncovered and scrubbed at by bed sheets instead of protected by the gauze, but he wasn't bleeding and could obviously sleep okay. Derek tugged the blanket back up over him, ducked in for a sleepy kiss.

"Think about waking up, Stiles," he said, quiet.

"Don't tell the unicorns they can watch TV," Stiles muttered. Trying not to laugh, Derek moved the desk away from the door again and left the room.

"Don't pull that bullshit again," Kenny said.

"Learn to knock," replied Derek.

Deucalion noticed the tardiness but seemed to excuse it because Derek's wet hair proved his story. Willful behavior though it was, it was obviously necessary in regards to a werewolf's senses. The alpha didn't question that because it was very firmly in the _I-don't-want-to-know_ category, but he didn't let Derek retreat back to his usual corner of the room. He was told to sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk. This time there was no fight about it; one side of the room was just the same as the other. Deucalion watched him a moment and seemed to be waiting for something. Derek didn't know _what_ so he waited.

"It was certainly enlightening watching your boy work a room," said Deucalion.

"He's not a boy," Derek replied, probably more defensive than he meant to be.

"I don't care if he's a little old woman. I watched him play a room of wolves. I heard him lie to his father," said Deucalion. The accusation made Derek angry and he had to remind himself to mentally back off.

"He's not allowed to tell his father the truth about almost anything," he said instead. He kept his tone very carefully controlled. "And you made him talk in front of an audience. He had shit to work with, what did you expect?"

"Then tell me, Derek. Do you have any real intent to leave McCall to his own fate? Will you sign on with me and mine and stay without coercion?"

"Do we have any other choice?"

"Young Stiles seemed to labor under the belief that you do," said Deucalion. "That is why I ask you, now, face to face. With no one here expecting to be impressed. Do you consider this pack your new home?"

"Yes," said Derek. He lied. Deucalion's eyes flashed red over a snarl. The look didn't last long. Derek forced himself to stay calm.

"Don't do that again," Deucalion said. Derek kept quiet. The alpha stared him down until Derek looked away. "I am a patient man, Derek. Do not confuse that with stupid. You can hold your heart rate steady, but you can't mask your scent. Fisher wouldn't even fall for that and he's an imbecile."

"Then no, I don't feel part of a pack. I feel like a prisoner. Or a pet with a tracking chip," replied Derek.

"There. That was easy," said Deucalion. "Less work than trying to hide a lie. So do us both a favor and don't pretend you know the answers I want from you. It won't save you anything."

So Derek didn't say anything to that, not wanting to assume a correct answer and all. He was sent to his usual spot, away but still in the room. A silent half hour later, Fisher showed up. His assignment for the day? He was to watch over Derek.

"Stiles freaks out when I show up bloody," Derek said, the only argument he would offer in to it. Deucalion looked up from what he was working on then.

"Don't make him bloody," he said to a smug Fisher. To Derek, he added, "And you can lie to Stiles."

Fisher was the worst example of humanity, cut from the same mold as Kali or Kate. He associated inflicting pain with holding power, and he liked showing it off. The basement of the house had a gym of sorts, a few pieces of equipment and a weight bench, and then mats on the floors and the walls padded in the corners. That was where they went to get Derek out of Deucalion's sight. By the end of the day, Derek was tired and probably would have signed on with Deucalion just to make sure he wouldn't have to spend eight hours defending himself again. But he wasn't bloody (because he saved his shirt) and nothing broke in the brawls. He had a better understanding of how hard he had pushed his betas as an alpha, but he realized there was no way he could have ever pushed them hard enough to survive in what little time he'd had.

Derek was locked up without food again that night, but he and Stiles had hoarded food from the night before for that very reason, hidden it in zip-lock bags in the towel cabinet in the bathroom. Stiles came back a little while after Derek had eaten and showered. Derek didn't have to say much to be allowed to curl up and sleep it off.

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

Pride wanted him to lie, small things, whatever Derek could get away with, because it was simple defiance that obviously got under Deucalion’s skin. It was what the other alphas had done to Derek from the start with Stiles, find the weakness and go after it until it crumpled. Instinct. But it wouldn’t work with Deucalion and Derek realized that. So instead he stuck to the routine, did what was expected, and eavesdropped. He was still angry, still not okay with being locked in and bullied, but Stiles was getting used to being there, getting stronger. There was a stability and less urgency as the history built up to show that their heads weren’t on the chopping block.

Deucalion seemed to be keying off of Stiles’ behavior more than Derek’s; Derek’s stayed consistent but Stiles went up and down as the days wore on. He had trouble focusing, his sentences rambled more, and his ideas were all over the place. He came back from town one day and started talking about something he had figured out from the kinetics of what he was learning through fighting, and ended up somehow discussing nuclear fucking fusion like he had just read a book about it. There was no obvious connecting thread between the logic jumps but Stiles knew exactly what he was talking about and, when Derek went back through and tried to play the conversation in his head in reverse, he could almost see where the tangents had spun off from. Deucalion, however, couldn’t. In all his background research on Scott the previous month, he’d apparently never gotten into much about Stiles; it wasn’t like they could pull “Stiles Stilinski is an ADHD headcase” out of Isaac’s brain.

In light of the fact that Derek wasn’t freaking out about it, Deucalion didn’t know what to do with the hostage who was slowly losing it.

Not quite a week after Thanksgiving, he started grilling Derek on Stiles. Was he alright or was the behavior just acting or was he picking up something from the dojo or... And Derek just shrugged it off and tried to unhelpfully answer at every possible turn without getting caught lying.

“How the hell do I know what’s going on with him?” he asked finally. “He’s gone ten hours a day, I get two hours before one or the other of us is asleep. That tells me, let’s see, that he _sleeps_.”

“So you’re telling me this is his normal?” said Deucalion, irritated.

Derek gave a bitter laugh. “No. But his normal is school and homework and Scott. It’s not _fighting_. He doesn’t fight. He’s a kid. You just scooped him away from his family, he’s in some kind of gilded cage surrounded by people who want to kill him. In another country. You really think he’s going to be normal after that?”

“So this is normal then,” said the alpha. “However new.”

“No it’s fucking not,” said Derek, angry at that being some kind of acceptable conclusion. “He’s off. He’s not thinking. It’s _not_ normal. If you’re expecting the kid to mastermind how to take over a small continent, he could lay it out for you right now. If you’re expecting anything useful from either one of us about the Argents or Scott, forget it. You’ll get a presentation on lemon meringue pie.”

There was no way Derek would tell the alpha he was dealing with an unmedicated, highly stressed version of the Stiles that Deucalion had expected to get. But he wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to be righteously angry about it.

That night Derek was kept late and he was surprised that Stiles was brought up to the office.

"Where's your phone?" the alpha questioned as he waved Stiles into a chair. Stiles had the phone out of his pocket in a flash, a tentative yet confused hope on his face. And so, even though Stiles smelled like sweat and dirty mat water and a dozen strangers, he sprawled in the chair and spent twenty minutes on speakerphone with his dad. Then one of his questions hit too close to something Stiles couldn't smile through the lie for; it went unanswered and the room went quiet. Neither of them were going to hang up, so the volley bounced to Derek.

"I've got your car at the station still, Derek. Mystery solved and everything as it is, I should probably get it released to someone before it gets auctioned off," the sheriff said, trying to recover the silence. Derek stalled for a moment; it was weird to be included in a conversation that was supposed to be family time for Stiles.

"I don't know where to store it or how to..." Derek hesitated and glanced over at Stiles. He just shrugged and shook his head; he didn't have ideas either.

"I can release it to anyone. If you want it sold off or something, that's a little more difficult," said the sheriff. "I can store it here at the house I guess."

"Can you sign it over to Melissa McCall?" Derek asked. "Without me there, I mean?"

From his slouch in the chair beside Derek's, Stiles raised an eyebrow, his lips quirked up in a grin.

"I'll see what I can do. I suppose she'd forgive you for kidnapping Stiles if you gave her a car for the deal," observed the sheriff. Stiles' grin turned into a mocking smile and he kicked idly at Derek's knee.

"That's the story down there?" asked Derek, frowning.

"Please say yes," said Stiles.

"Nope, just her version of events," said the sheriff, his tone reluctant. "Apparently that's what Scott told her so she'd stop worrying. I've straightened that out but she'd still rather you two eloped to Canada than whatever the hell actually happened."

Stiles' grin faded and he paled, his gaze darting to Deucalion at the mention of Canada. The alpha was not impressed.

"If you can, get her the car," said Derek, jumping the conversation back away from their albeit huge country of current residence. "But Scott doesn't get to drive it, or no deal."

"Why's that?" Stilinski asked.

"Scott's a pain in the ass and I'm sorry his mom has to put up with him," said Derek, tone perfectly dry. Stiles gave a quiet laugh and scrubbed at his face. He didn't have any defense at all for his best friend.

"And he’s afraid Scott and Allison'll just make babies in that thing," said Stiles. "He doesn't want them all over the interior."

"Oh my god, Stiles. Could you not - okay, I'll make sure to mention it to Melissa and we'll go from there," Stilinski said. The sheriff seemed to be stalling to stay on the phone but with so much he wasn’t allowed to say, Stiles wasn’t jumping on the pause. Derek did.

“Tell Scott to put someone on Peter. He’s going to cause trouble if he’s left alone too long,” he said. “I’m not sure if he’ll go looking for Cora or if he’ll start taking this out on Scott. But the main thing is... just don’t trust him. Do not leave him alone.”

“How do you mean, take it out on Scott?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m not sure what he’ll do without a pack around, is what I’m saying,” said Derek. He and his uncle were a couple of omegas in somebody else’s territory, but it was at least family to keep Peter in line. But now with Cora and Derek both out of town, it was a crapshoot with his uncle’s particular brand of crazy. “For all I know he hasn’t even noticed I’m gone. But he’s not exactly stable or predictable. I don’t want anything from this hitting Scott and the others.”

“Yeah,” agreed Stiles quietly, just loud enough for his dad to maybe hear him. “That’s another mental case I don’t want to deal with.”

At that point Deucalion had enough and waved for the call to get wrapped. Stiles instantly scowled and hunkered protectively over the phone. Derek frowned at him.

"Sheriff? We gotta go," he said, watching Stiles rather than Deucalion. "We'll call tomorrow sometime."

Stiles eased up then and said his goodbyes. They both waited for some kind of reaction from Deucalion but all he did was take the phone, remove the battery, and hand it back over to Stiles.

"We'll see about tomorrow," was all he said.

 

***

 

The next day was a little more interesting. They tried calling the sheriff first thing but got his answering machine. It was early enough that he was probably on his way to work, and if he was driving Stiles' jeep like he said, he wouldn't hear the call. Stiles wasn't wrecked over it but he was instantly growly. So Deucalion sent Derek to the dojo with them for the day. Stiles went on high-alert from confusion alone but he didn't argue.

Derek didn't know what to make of the small town. There were plenty of people around. It had sidewalks and alleyways and places to hide. He stared out the window, trying to memorize the roads. When they got out of the car, Stiles caught his shoulder as they followed Braeden into the building.

"If I take her to the mats she'll tell us how to scramble the trackers," he said, quiet. "I am totally practicing on you."

Derek nodded. He thought about it and then smiled, smug. "Don't expect me to go easy just because I let you steal the blankets," he said.

"Dude. Have you slept with yourself ever? You don't need them anyway," said Stiles, dismissive. He held the door open.

"Thank you for reminding me how long I've waited for this opportunity," replied Derek, still smiling as he ducked under Stiles' arm and went inside.

 

***

 

There was a waiting area of sorts for parents and Derek lurked near the window, his eyes searching the streets outside when he wasn’t watching what Stiles was learning. Braeden gave him his space and once or twice disappeared completely, but Derek didn’t really pay attention. He kept to himself. Between classes, Stiles helped the werewolf in charge of the place; he earned his keep in the class even though the place was clearly one of Deucalion’s AI projects. At least Stiles wasn’t dealing with the assholes back at the house so Derek didn’t plan on pointing it out to Stiles that he was missing a perfectly good protest opportunity. He wasn’t dressed to match the kids and looked more like another instructor so nobody wandering in and out seemed to think twice about the teenager joking around with their kids. He was new to working the cash register, handed out sign-up sheets, relayed questions and kept the mats picked up like he was paid to be there. It confused the hell out of Derek and left him angry; a job was better than a prison cell but who the hell was Deucalion to be dictating their lives in the first place?

“Dude, stop scowling. You’re gonna scare off the locals,” said Stiles. He dropped into a chair next to Derek. He had worked all morning and looked tousled and sweaty. Stiles had been strictly indoors for two weeks and was pale, but his cheeks were blush red to connect the little brown dots thanks to the work he had just finished. Derek’s scowl dropped off fast for reasons that had nothing to do with the locals. It took a moment but Stiles caught the look and grinned, smug. “That could scare them too.”

“Not my problem,” said Derek.

Stiles tilted his head and wondered aloud, “Does Canada have public indecency laws?”

“Goddamnit, Stiles,” muttered Derek as he figured out where that particular curiosity was leading to. Stiles waggled his eyebrows and refused to stop with the smug.

“What? It could work. Wanna try to catch us a Mountie? Get kicked outta Canada?” he asked. The grin on his face was obscene and Derek wanted to let him test the theory but he wasn’t that stupid. He straightened his jacket and slouched to hang onto his chair so he wouldn’t be dragged from it if Stiles got serious in his teasings.

“So I take it you’re on break?” Derek decided that subject changes were beautiful things. Stiles smirked and sighed, nodding.

“Yeah, he’s got some one-on-ones for a while. Braeden went to get lunch,” Stiles told him. Derek arched an eyebrow at the news. Stiles nodded. “Good behavior gets you places in prison, man. As long as you consider curly fries a, you know, geographical location.”

Surprised, Derek glanced between Stiles and the next room. They were behind a glass wall, seen but not easily heard by a distracted werewolf. Stiles stared back, not catching on.

“So we could walk out now and get a twenty minute head start on actually finding a cop?” he asked, voice lowered anyway. Stiles nodded but he didn’t look enthusiastic. He looked exactly the opposite of it, actually.

“I haven’t tried it from here,” said Stiles. “You weren’t here. And twenty minutes got me like not even a mile away when I tried it back in Washington. And I came back to an ass kicking. And I would just like to put it out there that I could not survive an ass kicking from an alpha. So what I’m saying is twenty minutes has never been worth it... We’re talking of the _Please-no-don’t-make-me_ variety of not worth it...”

There was just enough fear there that Derek nodded to set Stiles at ease. He realized then that Stiles had acclimated. _He_ had something to adjust to, that he could wrap his head around and accept, unlike Derek and his more territorial daily fights. This place was for learning and to a high school student, that would be safe territory and not foreign. Stiles would gamble on a sure-thing, but he wasn’t planning on that sure-thing showing up any time soon.

Derek glanced around the store-front dojo, where it was safe and social and Stiles could actually do something every day. On some level that he wouldn’t admit to, he was jealous, because this was a kindness. He couldn’t figure out if it was for Stiles or if it was something Deucalion had arranged as a way to get to Derek.

Either way, it was working.

“Can I go out anyway?” he asked. Derek waved toward the window. He needed air. Stiles caught on to the fact that something was off and jumped up, tugging Derek from the chair to push him toward the door. He ducked into the mat room to catch their babysitter’s attention to let him know they were going to be just outside. The casual, automatic response of it made it somehow worse and Derek saw himself out without waiting. Out on the sidewalk, he leaned back against the window, hands on his knees as he breathed in the cold. Stiles started to follow him out but then went back. He came back out carrying Derek’s jacket.

“What the hell, man?” asked Stiles. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Derek nodded, refused the jacket and stared off down the street. He was careful about it but he was breathing. “I’m fine,” he lied. He could lie to Stiles. “Just needed out.”

“It’s cold,” muttered Stiles. When Derek refused the jacket again, he shrugged in to it himself. “Look, is this ‘cause I said I don’t-”

Before he’d even finished speaking Derek was shaking his head. He straightened up and reached for Stiles. He tucked his arms under the jacket and leaned, Stiles wrapping him into a solid hold. His concern notched up a level. Derek tried not to say anything. He didn’t want to talk or screw over anything Stiles had come to rely on. Ignoring him would only amp Stiles up though.

“No. We stay until we have help,” he finally said. “You’re safe here and it’ll work. This one will work.”

“I think so, yeah...” Stiles sounded worried and pulled back enough to look at him. Derek distracted the effort into a kiss and that helped everything. Stiles wasn’t going anywhere and seemed okay with that. He pushed Derek back against the window ledge as an excuse to get closer.

The sound of stocky footsteps approaching startled Derek out of it and he turned away from Stiles’ lips to check to see who was walking up on them over Stiles’ shoulder. There was an annoyed huff from Stiles before he did the same.

“Something going on out here then, boys?” the stranger asked. Stiles rolled his eyes. He sighed and shifted away from Derek to scrub a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, obviously. We’re on the run from werewolves and stopped to take a breather- Ow! It was a joke!” Stiles scrunched his face when Derek kneed him in the thigh for smarting off to a goddamn werewolf. Stiles didn’t know who he was dealing with any more than Derek did, but Derek picked up the scent easy enough. The stranger’s expression darkened and he looked them over.

“You’re American?” the man asked Stiles. Stiles lifted an eyebrow.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” he asked. Derek tried not to roll his eyes.

“Accent,” came the predicted response. The stranger shifted his stance, hands going in his pockets and tugging his jacket back. An RCMP detectives badge at his chest hung from a chain. Stiles’ eyes widened.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. He echoed Derek’s own thoughts but Derek was certain they were for different reasons. He pushed away from the wall and started to coach Stiles toward the doors again. Stiles tugged back on him, intent to talk to the man. Derek clapped a hand over his mouth.

“We’re going inside,” he said. He bared his teeth at the RCMP and the man flashed red eyes back, giving Stiles the clue Derek had been angling for. Stiles swore under his breath and hightailed it inside. They retreated into the mat room that time rather than wait in the lobby. Leaned against the window by the door, the cop had pulled out a cigarette and looked to be making himself comfortable setting up watch until their regular babysitters weren’t so busy. Stiles reached up to shove his hair away from his face and his hands shook as he realized what he had almost done. Derek caught his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We stay in.”

“No dude... I almost ran last week, the day after I talked to my dad,” said Stiles. He nodded to the man now keeping guard. “I would have gone straight to a cop. I woulda been dead.”

Derek didn’t say anything. They had lost, Derek knew what _that_ felt like well enough. And whether he liked Deucalion or not, the alpha was taking care of them, taking them in, helping to keep them going in the maze he had dropped them into in the first place. He was an alpha that Derek could respect even if he hated him. The plan had been to lie, fake the pack to buy time, but pack had a way of killing plans. They weren’t going anywhere for awhile.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

Late afternoon, Derek was allowed to start helping Stiles. They sparred as much as Derek had the courage to push. Stiles was stronger but Derek still knew where to find injuries, how to cut past the clumsy brawl and win, and the temptation was strong. Instinct said to win, instinct said to swipe the burn on Stiles' chest or his shoulder and put his over-cocky opponent on the mat. But this was Stiles, not another wolf, and those tricks were far from fair. The burn on his shoulder still bothered him because his arm dragged, didn't respond as quickly. It was Stiles' stronger side for coordination but in a fight it was suddenly the weaker one. Derek pointed that out politely, but effectively, by swatting at his shoulder when Stiles let it lead on an attack.

"It'll heal," said Stiles. "I still have to learn in the meantime."

"Don't learn to lead with a weak front," returned Derek. That frustrated Stiles and he backed off and paced until he figured out a way around it. The second try was better and Derek challenged him again the next time. Braeden came in and watched.

They worked well past dinner until Derek called it. Stiles kept pushing because he hadn't gotten to work with Derek before and he didn't know when he would get to again. Their room wasn't big enough to toss each other around to that degree, so Derek got it, but he wasn't letting Stiles send _himself_ to the mats, either. Braeden bribed Stiles with drive-thru and they called it a day.

When they got back to the house, Deucalion met them at the foyer. Stiles looked on the greeting warily.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked the alpha. Stiles didn't trust him, but he had toned down the sarcasm. It surprised Derek to hear the question; since when did Stiles ask permission? Deucalion looked impressed, gave a curious nod. Stiles crossed his arms, uncomfortable.

"Do you own the whole damn town?" he asked. The alpha almost laughed at the question.

"I connect people with jobs. It pays off. I don't own anyone," the man said. He glanced at Derek and Derek had to look away. "Aside from a few exceptions."

Stiles opened his mouth to ask something Derek was guessing he probably shouldn't anyway and the alpha caught him instead.

"Your dinner was set aside," he interrupted, waving them toward the dining room.

"Not actually hungry..." said Stiles.

"Where's your phone?" Deucalion asked.

"Nevermind, I could eat," Stiles decided, hurrying to the dining room. Derek followed after them, trailing with Braeden rather than race.

So Stiles got another phone call. He was slightly ecstatic and he and the phone did more pacing than sitting as it rang. It was late, but the bet was that his dad would still be awake. Not only was he awake, he was at the McCalls' house.

The sheriff got in hardly three words before Melissa McCall stole the phone - no warning, she just attacked and pried it from the sheriff's hands from what Derek heard over the connection - and started in on Stiles.

"Are you okay? What happened? We found your shirt and there was blood all over and there was blood in the house! That better have been Derek's- is Derek there?"

"Yes!" Stiles shoved the phone at Derek rather than be yelled at by concerned females. Derek stared at him and refused to touch the phone; he knew less about hysterical females than Stiles did.

"Derek? Are you alright?" Melissa asked. The question took him completely off guard. He stared at Stiles, like he needed a translation and Stiles was the one who spoke that language. He was the only one in recent history who had bothered to ask Derek that.

"Uh..." Derek managed to try. "It was almost a month ago now..."

"Three weeks. Not a month yet," said Melissa.

"You're both wrong," said Stiles. "Try two weeks and change."

"So yeah. I healed," said Derek. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, trying not to notice how badly his days had blurred.

"What the hell are you thinking giving me your car?" Melissa asked. "You need it."

"Not at the moment," said Derek. "Your car is held together by duct tape, Melissa. Just take the car. I'll get a new one when I need one again."

"I'll pay you back," said Melissa.

"Nope."

"Derek..."

Sighing, Derek rolled his eyes at the phone. "Pretend it's an apology for the existence of Peter. Would that make you feel better?"

"Yes!" came Scott's voice.

" _You_ still can't drive it," said Derek.

"Come on, man!" And suddenly Scott was best friends with Derek. He shook his head.

"It's your mom's. Not yours. So don't even." Derek glanced over at where Deucalion sat across the table, monitoring the call. He was no fan of Derek talking to Scott. Even Stiles noticed.

"Scotty! Lemme talk to-"

Scott didn’t even entertain the thought of handing the phone off. "No way, man. What the hell? You eloped-"

"We didn't. And _that's_ why you don't drive my car," interrupted Derek. Stiles looked over at Derek with mock annoyance.

"Why not let that one get around?" he asked. "I'm not good enough for you now? Harsh, man..."

"Oh my god. I hate you two," muttered Derek. Stiles was pacing within easy reach so, just to shut him up on that point, he dragged him close. Lips crushed together, he did his best to shut him up about who was good enough for whom. When he caught on to the challenge of it, Stiles did a much better job at shutting Derek up.

"Oh my god are you making out?" came the squawk from the cell phone. "Right now? With me on the phone?"

Derek growled into Stiles' mouth which made Stiles smile and he pulled away laughing. He crouched at his side, elbows on Derek’s thigh for comfortable balance. Stiles held the phone between them even though Derek had absolutely no intention of talking again.

"Now you know what it's like," said Stiles. "Have fun being single, buddy!"

"Shut up. I choose the single life," said Scott. The banter quieted because the homesick kicked in for the two friends at apparently the same time. "But seriously. You guys are okay?"

"Yeah. I’ve never stayed out of trouble so well in my life,” said Stiles. He frowned at the phone. “You’ve apparently been a terrible influence on me and should feel bad. All these years I thought it was me that was the problem.”

“Trust me, sweetie, it is _always_ you,” came Melissa’s voice. Derek huffed and nodded agreement as Stiles grinned.

The banter seemed stilted despite the relief he heard in their voices all around. Tuning them out, Derek stared at the table, wondering what it must be like for them on the other end. Stiles had just disappeared one day and left his wallet and phone and backpack in Derek’s car, at Derek’s family’s burnt out house. Stiles was seventeen years old and left behind his dad, his school, and medicines. His car was abandoned at Derek’s apartment parking lot. More amazing than that was the ever-present laptop left in his backpack. And the only explanation for it was that the two - who spent most of their time bickering - had gone off to join another pack and take a job. And Stiles made it sound like they got it on like _bunnies_.

Derek had to tramp down on the urge to interrupt Stiles’ conversation and apologize just to assure Stiles’ family that he hadn’t stolen Stiles away into the sex trade or something. Every third word out of Stiles’ mouth only made it worse. Derek tried not to but he started to quietly laugh because there was absolutely no way he could save his own reputation back in his hometown at this point. Stiles looked up at him and that just made it worse. It wasn’t even funny but it was.

“What?” asked Stiles, interrupting an actual conversation with people he couldn’t talk to any other day of the week to figure out why Derek had suddenly lost his mind. Derek shook his head and tried to get himself back under control. He contained it to the shaking of his shoulders. Stiles thought it was fascinating and grinned back at him, refused to leave it alone.

“Guys, hang on... I think I broke Derek...” Stiles said into the phone and Derek lost it again. Tucking the phone up to his shoulder, Stiles caught Derek by the front of the shirt and tugged. Derek realized he was laughing so hard he had lost his sense of balance because suddenly he was on the floor next to where Stiles crouched. “What?” pried Stiles. Derek leaned on the chair and shook his head.

“You. I’ve already got a record ‘cause of you, now the eloped to Canada? I sound like a... murderous pimp,” Derek finally managed. “If we weren’t _here_ , your dad’d kill me.”

Still crouched over his heels next to him, Stiles stared at him. It was like he was studying Derek’s face, surprised by the fact that Derek couldn’t stop laughing. Derek couldn’t blame him; he was pretty sure this was what a psychotic break felt like so that must be what it looked like. Stiles just grinned at him for what felt like the longest time. Then he put the phone back on speaker and held it up between them again.

“Okay, I was wrong,” said Stiles. “I didn’t break him, Dad did. Dad? You’re not allowed to kill my boyfriend, okay? I promise he’s not a pimp or a murderer.”

_...Wait._

“What!” squawked the sheriff’s voice from what sounded like half-way across the room from wherever the phone was. Scott sounded shocked, asking over it, “Wait, that’s Derek laughing? I thought it was one of the others there...”

“Nope, it’s Derek...” Stiles broke off when Deucalion’s chair moved, noisy. Derek had calmed somewhat but caution kicked in too fast at the sound of the alpha standing. His smile faded as he looked up past Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles caught the clue and looked, too. Deucalion gave the signal to wrap it up, backing up the order by starting around the table toward them.

“Shit,” muttered Stiles, his own amusement noticeably faded. “I gotta go guys. Somebody hug my dad for me-”

“Wait! When are you calling again? I was in the jeep this morning-” his dad asked.

“I dunno. I think we fucked up or something so I’m not sure... gotta go,” Stiles rushed out. He snapped the phone closed as Deucalion stood over them. Trying to look small and not challenge the alpha, Derek curled against his arm on the chair seat. Deucalion’s attention was on Stiles and he held his hand out for the phone.

“Next time you call, you ask if Scott is there,” said Deucalion. He started pulling the battery from the phone. “And if he is, you will tell them that you’ll call back when he’s not.” The alpha held the phone down to Stiles’ reach again but didn’t let him take it. “Understood?”

Rather than argue about not getting to talk to his friend, Stiles nodded. “Got it.”

Deucalion handed him the phone then and headed for the door. “Go to bed,” he said. “Braeden, see them up before you leave.”

Nobody moved until Deucalion had left the room. Then Derek looked to Stiles, watched him put the phone in his pocket.

“Sorry,” he said, quiet. Stiles shrugged it off.

“You okay?” he asked. Derek nodded. Stiles nodded back, probably making fun of him and Derek pulled a face at him for it. Stiles grinned and wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders, shoving him away from the chair and flattening him into the floor with a hug.

 

***


	4. Chapter 4

A few days went by where Derek felt safe. He went with Stiles to the dojo twice. He saw the difference in the attitude, watched him hang on as himself when he knew he was safe, surrounded by little kids and their parents, around alphas who taught him how to defend himself without threatening his life. It was strange to Derek, to learn that way; he had only been taught to defend himself in situations where he actually had to, because pain didn't last long and injuries healed, so his family had always played rough. Stiles - the kid who fainted at the sight of needles and got nauseous at the first sign of real blood- did better learning the theory and applying it himself. He actually snuck past Derek once to take him down. _Once_.

Back at the house though, he was surly and smart-mouthed. He provoked Fisher because the alpha tried to provoke Derek. He had it figured out that Deucalion didn't care when Derek defended Stiles, he only got involved when Derek defended himself. It wasn't the smartest plan but Derek appreciated the chance it gave him to fight back.

They were just finishing dinner one night when Fisher started in on Derek. So it was that, after harassing Derek from across the table over his meal, Fisher slashed the back of his neck with claws as he walked by on the way out of the room. Stiles was up like a shot, like he had been waiting for it. He had come close to kicking Derek's ass just two hours earlier and was particularly full of himself because of it.

Derek had been braced for the attack from Fisher. He hadn't been expecting Stiles to go after him for it. He was never letting Stiles get him close to the mats again, Derek reasoned. But he stood by and watched the fight in slight shock because Fisher was humoring Stiles on it. The werewolf kept his claws and teeth tucked in and sparred, taunting Stiles.

"Derek, get Stiles," said Deucalion as they watched. Derek swore as Fisher baited Stiles with a Bowie knife. Stiles had figured out how to disarm people pretty well already. He was going to lose against that one though. Derek stepped forward then, just as Stiles made his move to claim the knife.

"Fisher! Knock it off!" The demand was little better than a distraction and Stiles stole the knife. Deucalion caught Derek by the shoulder and shoved him off course.

"You get Stiles. He started it."

Derek ignored the order and tried again to pull Fisher back. It didn't work though. His body stopped listening to him. He couldn't land a punch if his life depended on it. He could barely move, felt like he was fighting himself more than interfering with anything. Derek recognized what it was and looked to the alpha steering him around like a puppet from a few feet away. Stiles and the knife took another swipe at Fisher - he hadn't been taught to _attack_ with weapons yet, only disarm- and Fisher smiled as he took the invitation to bring his claws into play. And Derek couldn't defend Stiles.

His only defense was offense. Derek gave in to the instinctive urge to obey the dark voice echoing in his head and turned on Stiles instead of his attacker. Blue eyes flashing, teeth bared and threatening, Derek put himself between Stiles and Fisher. He attacked to disarm and the shock of it had Stiles backing off fast. The knife tossed away, Derek pressed Stiles back into the wall. He had hands fisted in Stiles' shirt, no claws, but he was still stronger and kept him pinned there.

"Don't!" Derek growled to back it up, as forceful as he could get while simultaneously terrified. Stiles stared back at him, amber eyes wide and just as scared as Derek felt. He managed a nod. Derek let him loose and forced himself to calm, to feel normal and regain control. He glanced over at Deucalion and saw the man looking on, pleased and smug. Stiles saw it too; he narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything.

"You two are done socializing for the day I think," the alpha said, nodding to Derek and Stiles. "Upstairs."

Derek let out a breath and turned to the stairs without needing told twice. Stiles reluctantly followed. Braeden kept up with them to get them through the doors. Back in the foyer, Deucalion chided Fisher.

"You know better. Don't mess with the mates."

Derek cringed but didn't say anything, hoping Stiles hadn't heard.

 

***

 

The expected question still somehow hit Derek unprepared when they got to their room.

"I'd ask what the hell that was but I get the distinct impression you'd lie," said Stiles. To make it worse, he had his back to the bathroom door, ready to hide from the werewolf who switched sides. He reeked of sweat and fear and adrenaline, his breathing still thrown off from the fight. Derek crossed his arms, offended despite himself.

"You're not ready to take on Fisher," he said, defensive. It was the truth, or as much of it as Derek could figure out how to explain.

"I don't care. If I wanna get my head sawed off by an alpha, I'll do it," said Stiles. "As it happens, I don't want that yet. But the thing is, I was expecting backup! Not an attack!"

"I did. I broke up the damn fight," said Derek.

"He started it," returned Stiles.

"Yeah, and for once I got to finish it. I just didn't have to get my ass kicked to do it. Kinda rare experience lately. I happen to like my blood on the inside of my body, not all over the lobby," Derek said. "Or the basement. Or the second floor office. Or the kitchen."

The long list of regular fights quieted Stiles' attitude. Not so long ago, Stiles was the one encouraging Derek not to fight. He apparently hadn't caught on to the slow shift under his new default reaction of anger. Derek had, and some days it helped, but if Deucalion was going to start enforcing Derek's place in the pack he wasn't going to risk it.

"No more fights, Stiles. I'll take care of myself. Keep it to the dojo and don't mess with the alphas," Derek said. "You're not ready for it and I don't know how many times I have to prove that I'm not."

Stiles frowned at him, unsettled. "You're making the dojo sound like a waste of time."

"No. You're better there, and you're learning more than you had before. You know _how_ to fight better than Scott now," said Derek. "But that's all on the mats. And you can't take down someone more experienced and stronger than you'll ever get without the bite. Scott couldn't. Not even after a month."

"Fine," said Stiles, in the tone that said he was trying to shut the topic down. "But we're still stuck here. And unless I missed something, it's still you and me against the assholes."

"Yes," said Derek, quick to nod.

Stiles allowed it, his arms still crossed and posture guarded. "Then don't freakin' come at me like that again."

"I won't," Derek promised. "I didn't mean to, I just... Reacted."

Stiles stared at him for a long, silent minute, like he caught the things Derek wasn't saying. He was definitely judging him, and hard. Finally he just nodded, muttered something about taking a shower and then disappeared into the bathroom. Derek waited, paced, and finally realized he was the worst kind of human who couldn't just say the things in his head that he knew he needed to say. He was pretty sure Stiles knew that by now. The fact that Stiles hid in the bathroom for half an hour before finally taking the shower was a big clue.

 

****

 

“What the hell do you mean I’m going back to school?”

The question was phrased about as eloquently as Derek would have put it, and he wasn’t the one going back to school so he let Stiles have it. They sat in the chairs across from Deucalion’s desk again. What Derek thought he had a handle on skewed a little sideways.

A week had passed since Derek had given up. He was getting attached to the routine that he had been allowed to keep since signing on with the pack. He hadn’t figured out how to tell Stiles that his plan hadn’t worked how they wanted it to. After the fight with Fisher the day before, he half hoped Stiles had figured it out on his own. Derek was still pissed that Scott could hold out as an omega around a stronger pack longer than he was capable of. They were lucky so far in that Deucalion wanted the both of them on board and was giving Stiles time. It bought Derek time to deal with his pride. And apparently now time for Stiles to finish his diploma.

“In one of your conversations with your father, he said he wanted you back in school,” said Deucalion. Stiles scoffed and nodded.

“Yeah, ‘cause he wants me home and I’ve missed _weeks_ at this point...”

Two weeks of school, Derek figured, since Beacon Hills took a week off for thanksgiving. Three weeks from home was still three weeks too many.

“Me going back to school requires me being at _home_ , something you’ve now told me many times isn’t happening so I’m supposed to stop talking about it with _my dad,_ ” said Stiles. “So there is no possible way I can go back to school unless you’ve fabricated a new ID for me, a passport, and an entire transcript.” Deucalion let him get everything out, patient. Stiles paused and swore. “Shit. _Can_ you get my transcript? I don’t want to finish school in Canada.”

“There’s this wonderful invention in the past fifty years, Stiles,” said Deucalion. The alpha was entertained. Derek stared as he handed a laptop computer over across the desk. “Computers. I would have thought you were familiar with the concept of an online education.”

Mentally, Derek broke into a swearing fit. Stiles with a computer? That was his natural habitat. That was real. That was deadly when it came to the possibilities. Computers had the internet and the internet had social media and social media meant he could contact anyone... There were so many things they could do with a computer. Only an idiot would give them a computer unless it was a trap. Deucalion wasn't an idiot; he was a subdued psycho who ran a fucking _profitable_ business with a minimum of fifteen alphas reporting to him, probably more who didn't bother tracking him down in the wilds of Canada. Idiots did not accomplish that.

"Wait. Are you serious?" Even Stiles was afraid to touch the computer. Deucalion nodded.

"Beacon Hills school district has an online diversion program. As of today you are enrolled," the alpha said. "So you will finish school like your father asked."

Stiles reached for the laptop but then stopped. He was angry and Derek could practically feel the rapid heartbeat that echoed in his ears.

"This doesn't make sense," he finally said. He looked from Stiles to Deucalion. "What- just... Why?"

"Yeah," agreed Stiles. "Do you know what- I mean, I can seriously _destroy_ you with a computer." He was serious, not boasting, just stating simple fact. He looked to Deucalion, unflinching. "It's real nice and all that you suddenly feel sorry for my dad, but you're putting a lot of effort into keeping me here. And I don't do anything. And I could just... _Ruin you_ with ten minutes internet access. So this is some kind of freakin' trap and I'm not going near it."

"There is no trap," said Deucalion. "And you're right. You are here, where you do nothing. And there is risk in giving you this opportunity."

Stiles stared at him. "Then I am seriously missing the punch-line here. Why are you letting me do this?"

The alpha looked between the both of them. Derek felt a warning sense of dread as the man's expression faded from amused to his usual neutral.

"Because you've served your purpose here. Derek has adjusted to the pack. If you were to leave, it would make things difficult but not impossible," said Deucalion. "So these are your options, Stiles. Remain and continue the education we interrupted, be the runaway the school thinks you are. Or go home. By yourself. Job successfully completed, financial compensation arranged."

Blank-faced in an effort to hide actual fear, Derek stared at the computer. This wasn’t something they had ever considered. It was something they had believed would never happen, because that’s what they were told. It’s what they were shown. Now... It was a sure-thing that was safe to gamble on and Stiles could go home. Derek would have to stay or be placing Stiles at risk again. That was how it worked.

“Financial...” Stiles sounded as gutted as Derek felt. “Fucking financial compensation?”

“After the disaster a few months ago, there was a bounty out for Derek. If Kenny and Chuck had failed, it would have gone to whoever brought him in. But you’ve been invaluable in bringing him into the pack, that can’t be ignored. So, yes. You would be paid, if you left,” said Deucalion.

“Fuck you,” cut in Stiles, angry.

“Stiles, don’t start.” Derek couldn’t look at him and keep composure so he didn’t. “Just take the money and use it to get home.”

“Shut up, Derek,” Stiles replied. Derek chanced looking over at him, not sure how to read the anger otherwise. Stiles’ glare didn’t waver from Deucalion. “This is bullshit. I can go home and go back to my life or I can stay here and put up with your bullshit, and it’s all on me? My _choice_ now?”

“Dealer’s choice,” said Deucalion with a nod, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lips. “You play out the hand you deal.”

“And I don’t fuck up your shit when you give me a computer,” added Stiles, following the unspoken logic. Derek leaned over his knees, trying not to feel sick. He scrubbed at his face.

“Jeezus, just go _home_ , Stiles!”

“No,” said Stiles. He reached out and took hold of his brand new fancy fucking Mac laptop and Derek thought seriously about reaching out and breaking it. He couldn’t bring himself to voluntarily act against Stiles any more than he could reach across the desk and strangle his alpha. Three fucking weeks and he was in so far over his head he couldn’t move.

Derek tried again. “Just-”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” returned Stiles. He and the laptop stood up. He held a hand out over the desk. “Give me the goddamn cell battery, too.”

Deucalion picked up one of his ubiquitous envelopes off the desk and opened it, tipping the battery and a charger out of it, showing a few printed pages from the school stuff sneaking out the top. He dropped everything back inside to hand it across to Stiles.

“We’re trusting you, Stiles,” he said. “Not to do anything to endanger our pack. Thanks to some of your boasts to your father, Derek would fare no better than the rest of us.”

Stiles’ reply was to flip the man off. He was too angry. He marched to the door and was met there by Kenny.

“Let me out,” he ordered. Kenny looked past Stiles to see Deucalion nod his approval before letting Stiles out and leaving with him. A part of Derek wanted to relax, wanted to laugh at the fact that Stiles was just going to make a demand and get away with it now. But he couldn’t because Stiles had given the wrong damn answer and Derek wanted to be mad. He wanted Stiles to stay but he wanted him home safe more than that. For a moment, all Derek could do was sit and stare at the floor, hating that he felt like he had dodged a bullet.

“That was a favor,” said Deucalion after some time. Derek looked up at him, incredulous.

“The hell it was,” he growled. The alpha gave a twisted smile.

“Now you know where you stand, Derek. You know where he is with you,” Deucalion said. “You have a pack. You have your mate. And you know here he’ll be safe.”

“What do you know?” The quietly annoyed question was more for himself, Derek reminding himself that he couldn’t afford to trust a power-focused alpha like Deucalion.

“I know the difference between a member of my pack and a mate, for one thing,” said Deucalion. Derek glanced up at him long enough to narrow his eyes. He couldn’t handle the smug look just then and looked away to glare at the floor. Deucalion leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk.

“I know you’re the son of Talia Hale. I know how she would have replied to my offer against Gerard. You’ve got a lot yet to learn for what you lost. You’re no stranger to vengeance, Derek. I know the reason your eyes are blue. I know the Argents decimated your pack. So I know that somewhere in you, you’re as capable of serving as judge and executioner as you are the erstwhile protector,” the alpha said.

And that was Derek’s cue to leave whether Deucalion approved or not.

“I’m going to go find Stiles,” he said, ignoring the change in subject entirely. He made it to the door without looking at Deucalion. Once there he looked back, shoulders squared and back straight, the best he could do at getting his own brain back. “Let me out.”

Deucalion sat back in his desk chair, considering it, before he grabbed the remote from the desk drawer and the door beeped to let Derek out.

 

***

 

It wasn't hard to find Stiles. He went to their room, since that was the only thing resembling a hiding place they had in a house full of locked doors. They had left the stairwell doors open for him, too. A big hint. Kenny waited outside the room, playing on his cell phone.

"Figured you'd be along," the hunter said as he opened the door. "Kid's got my number if you need out before one of you kills the other."

Derek frowned at that but he let the door shut and lock. Then he stood not far inside the room, watching Stiles sprawled on the bed. He alternated between getting the computer to cooperate and fussing with the phone.

"I'm not mad at you," said Stiles suddenly, not looking up. "Unless you tell me to go home again, in which case you're sleeping in the hall tonight, big guy."

Despite himself, Derek grinned at that. It faded quickly. "That basically knocks out everything I had to say," he admitted. "Since you belong at home and safe."

"Yeah, so do you." Stiles looked up from the phone then, expression drawn and irritated. "And I'm not the one getting beat up by alphas every day- I mean, how the hell, Derek? I can't get you to back Scott- for like a month, I try to make peace happen,- and then we're here three weeks and the _bad guy_ gets you? How does that even work?"

Derek didn't have an answer. He stalled out, mouth hung open like the words were right there, but he had nothing. Stiles frowned at him. "You could have at least told me."

"How?" That was easy because it was the question Derek had wanted an answer to for a week. "How do I tell you that? If I told you it'd just make everything worse-"

"I guessed from the fight where you _attacked_ me, and then I found out I was right from him. _That_ is worse," argued Stiles.

"What, so you want to know _you_ did it?" Derek asked. "You and your daily visits with the locals. You had something to work on. He made sure you stayed busy and safe and tried giving you the means to protect yourself. But _you_ got used to it. And I didn't want you to lose it when you needed it. We couldn't run and I... I needed a break, just a safe place... so I stopped."

The frustrated anger faded as Stiles stared at him. Derek waved vaguely toward the house.

"He's got a strong pack, Stiles. I'm _in_ their territory. It was this constant... noise. They don't like me, they don't want omegas challenging them. I was a threat to them and it put you in the crossfire if I kept fighting them. They're alphas, I'm out of my class. Jennifer wiped me out. I'm just done."

The mention of Jennifer Blake made Stiles' hackles rise and he put the phone down, slightly accusatory for having said her name. Derek shrugged. "That's what you wanted to know. A week late but I told you."

"We had a plan though," said Stiles, almost petulant.

"Yeah, and I tried and it didn't work," said Derek. "Scott can fight it but I can't. That's why this makes no sense. Scott's stronger. I don't know what he thinks I can do."

"I don't want Scott here," said Stiles quickly.

Derek nodded. "Neither does Deucalion. So whatever it is, it isn't about power, otherwise it would be Scott here instead of me."

"I'm not Allison. Scott would have thrown me to the wolves the first day," Stiles pointed out. He looked accusingly at Derek again. "Because _he_ doesn't roll over when the bad guy plays dirty."

"Don't even start," warned Derek. "You're the asshole who just passed on a free ride home _and_ a year of college tuition to sit here and keep me company. Guess who rolled."

Stiles frowned and glanced down at the phone in his hands. He tossed it aside. Then he looked back up at Derek. "Just don't tell me to leave again. I'm not leaving you by yourself and I'm not going without you. Those are two separate things and I won't do either."

Their gazes held for a minute before Derek nodded. "I won't."

Stiles accepted the promise with a nod and turned his attention to the computer. He jerked his head toward Derek's half of the bed. "I gotta set this shit up. Come help."

Derek huffed and didn't say anything. Stiles didn't need any help. The computer efforts lasted exactly two minutes before it was put away and Derek pinned Stiles to the pillows in thanks for refusing to leave.

 

***

 

That afternoon, they got Stiles' school stuff sorted out. And he spent an hour going through three weeks of emails. And being angry. Derek went through the printed papers and figured out a slight snag.

"You need books," he said. "How are we supposed to get you books?"

Stiles paused his email browsing and fetched Derek a business card, complete with address and phone numbers, from the desk. "Stole it from the dojo," he said. "And there's like a one-in-fifty shot that google earth can tell us where we are. So I gotta buy books and have them shipped."

Derek frowned. He could see a few problems with that plan already. Stiles shrugged it off.

"I'm on my dad's Amazon account."

"Yeah, and he'd love to see the address in the history," said Derek. Stiles looked over at him.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay... We send them to Lydia to forward. She'll keep her mouth shut," said Stiles. Derek almost choked.

"No, actually. She won't," he said.

"Who then? Danny? I guess Jackson would. But that'd be expensive and assumes he'd do anything other than kick the box into a corner..." Stiles frowned. "I have a really short list of friends who aren't in on the whole werewolf thing."

Seeing that the notion of asking Deucalion was a foreign concept, even if it was his fault, Derek shook his head. "We can use my account. It's not like your dad canceled my bank cards."

"I'm pretty sure he _could_ if he found out we used it," said Stiles, frowning. Derek arched an eyebrow. Stiles caught on. "So don't tell him. Got it."

When they got the books ordered, Stiles sent a text message to Deucalion. It read:

_I had my school books sent to town. Deal with it._

And Derek started keeping himself between Stiles and the door out of paranoia.

 

***


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next few days, the routine changed. Stiles spent less time at the dojo because he had to do homework. They moved furniture out of an empty room beside theirs and brought mats up from the basement - the wolves didn’t need them anyway - to turn it into a safe place for training. Derek was given a keycard for the two rooms - Stiles wasn’t - and any time they wanted to leave the floor they had to call to ask for someone to let them. Stiles got a keycard to the kitchen - Derek didn’t - and he would work there when he was sick of the third floor.

Derek got paired up with another of the AI alphas, a younger one who wasn’t such an asshole, and he spent a few days in town himself. They worked at a shooting range for hours at a time. Deucalion didn’t own anyone there and actually paid for Derek to get some weapons training. It wasn’t his thing at all, he discovered. The noise hurt even with ear protection. But he was a good shot. And a bullet wound would slow a hunter down more than it would him. It felt like cheating, using deadly force when Derek had always been trained to run and stay away from that level of fighting with hunters or anyone else who wasn’t a wolf. Shooting was for sport, it was for points and who could win the competition of fastest draw or best aim; it was no replacement for defending himself with his own abilities. Not that he was excellent at that. It just felt... Weird.

Still more training happened at the house, where Kenny pulled out the bag of hunter tricks in the basement. Stiles and Deucalion were with them then and when Derek saw the bag he reacted, pulled Stiles bodily behind him and tensed for attack. The alpha backed him down for it.

“Just pay attention,” Deucalion said. Stiles caught on first - since he hadn’t been on the receiving end of the weapons for half his life - and edged around Derek to investigate the tools laid out on the table. Derek didn’t like it but he didn’t interfere after that. Stiles looked over at Deucalion, eyebrow lifted.

“These are old. I saw better stuff in Chris’ basement,” he said. “I mean, I was a little distracted, but they weren’t this bulky...”

“I’ve been out of the trade a few years,” said Kenny. “But the idea’s the same.”

“They hurt the same,” added Derek. Stiles frowned at that. He picked up one of the batons and hefted it in his hands, mimicked hack-and-slash sword fighting.

"How do you turn it on?" he asked.

" _You_ don't," said Derek warily. "It's not a lightsaber."

"Yeah, so somebody better show me how to use it right," returned Stiles. "And the on-off switch is the basics."

Derek's lip curled to show his disagreement with the scheme but he stepped forward before Kenny did. He took the baton from Stiles to show him how it worked, reducing the cringe the sound would have caused powering up otherwise. The temptation to swipe the weapon at Kenny was there, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. When Stiles reached to take it, Derek powered the baton down again before handing it to him.

With it powered up, Stiles waved it around, a little more intentionally and more careful about keeping it away from his own body. He didn't have his old flannel extra layers to swish around, Stiles dressed in dark colored long sleeves and jeans, a uniform just like Derek’s, so he could move without catching things. It was a good thing, too, otherwise Stiles probably would have lit himself on fire.

A second later he did something just as dumb. As he was moving, Stiles turned and suddenly held the weapon barely an inch from Deucalion's gut. The move could have been classic awkward Stiles except for the part where he was staring right at the alpha, the challenge on his face. Deucalion didn't blink. Stiles didn't blink. Derek wasn't sure who he wanted to end more.

"Stiles!" he bit out, snappish with his panic barely held in check. Stiles acknowledged it with a slight nod but still smugly held the alpha in check at the end of a sci-fi cattle prod. He was in an actual staring contest with an alpha, determined not to look away or blink first. Did he forget that the man used to be _blind_? Strangling back a litany of oaths, Derek stepped in and caught the handle where Stiles' hand fit on it, carefully twisting until the weapon was away from Deucalion and closer to himself so he could reach the switch to turn it off. It put him bodily between the two and forced an equal draw to the staring contest. Stiles' lips still curled into the unholy smirk that promised trouble but he let Derek take the baton from him. He held up his hands and stepped back.

"Yeah, I know, no more playing with the not-toys," he said.

"You're here to learn to use them," corrected Deucalion. He was calm but not impressed. "Just not on yourself or on Kenny."

"I'm not using them on Derek," said Stiles, quick to argue like usual. Deucalion raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't say they had to be turned on," said the alpha. Stiles’ response was to flip the man off and move on to pick up a crossbow bolt.

Derek hated that fucking basement.

 

***

 

Derek worked with different members of the pack over the next few days. It started to feel familiar, even though he was shadowing them on things he had never done before. He went out past the small town with the dojo and into the city. Vancouver. He didn't feel the tug of Beacon Hills even though he was suddenly less than an hour from the US border. He was surrounded by people, strangers, and plenty of police officers to run to for help. But Stiles was back the opposite direction. Derek tried not to look twice at people of authority, he stuck with the packmates he was shadowing that day. It was a helluva lot more interesting than staring out at the woods.

It started out stupid guard work, rent-a-cop stints at the mall, all building over the week toward working security for some special fundraiser that kept him in the city until 2am. People richer than Midas walked by in their three thousand dollar shoes and Derek stood in a generic black suit pretending he knew how to smile and smell trouble at the same time. It struck him that he had no business there; less than a week of training did not a security guard make, especially with so much money walking around.

Derek couldn't really complain about the money making them jerks as he hadn't exactly been hurting for cash ever in his life. As an adult he just got used to not needing much. Even now, it wasn't his suit he was wearing, just a borrowed one little better than a uniform. He got by, and the money stayed where his parents put it. So the Christmastime fundraiser was extravagant.

And there was the detail that just a month ago Derek had been dragged into the country illegally, locked in a box with Stiles, and not really let out of it until he stepped foot in the city. He found it darkly amusing that everyone behind that fundraiser who had the slightest hint of anything to do with hiring Alpha Inc was suddenly an accessory to kidnapping and trafficking a minor. He held open a door for a richly dressed couple who didn't even notice he was there.

Around eleven pm, Derek started to get anxious. The press of people, overwhelming scent of perfumes and over-marinated colognes, and the noise seemed to make it worse. He tracked down one of the AI crew he was there with.

"I need a break," he said. The guy looked at him in surprise.

"We can't exactly pause the festivities because you need a break," the alpha replied.

"Yeah, except I'm starting to lose it," said Derek. "There's something wrong and I need out of this crowd."

"Fuck, are you kidding?" The alpha had a Bluetooth headset tucked over his ear and paged another alpha. There were six of them there, including Fisher somewhere. Derek would take Fisher as a babysitter if it meant he could get away from the crowd.

"Yeah, you know that problem the boss said we were gonna have? We got it," the alpha reported into his headset. "What do I do with him?"

That caught Derek's attention. He had been fine all week, this was the first sign of a "problem" the whole time, so what the hell did that mean? He waited but eavesdropping got him nothing. The alpha looked at him.

"We can lock you in the car," he told Derek. "But the rest of us are here for another two hours. Best you've got."

"What's going on?" Derek pressed. The man shook his head

"We're working," he replied. "So are you gonna work or go sit?"

Derek didn't like it but he returned to work. He made it another twenty minutes before he went back and asked for the car. Something was very, very wrong, but he didn't know what. There were too many people that could set him off in that crowd. In the car he at least had quiet. The urge to shred something was still there, but there was no one around to trigger it.

 

***

 

The event finished up without incident and, to Derek's surprise, he ended up with a driver to get home an hour earlier than the others would be. They were supposed to oversee cleanup as well but they were two men short because Derek apparently was needed at the house.

"What's going on?" Derek asked, his earlier anxiety shoved harshly to the fore. The alpha, Patrick, was older than him, but not so set in his ways as Fisher and had never given Derek any problems.

"There was trouble at the house earlier," Patrick explained. Derek tensed as he realized his problems earlier that night were related.

"That was two hours ago-"

"And the kid is fine. Or that's what we were told anyway," Patrick said. He talked over Derek's instant arguing to continue. "He picked a fight after dinner. Apparently he mouthed off to Duke in front of everybody. That never goes well... but they said he's okay."

They were stuck in traffic by then, still an hour from the house but on the way out of the city. Derek couldn't do any better if he got out and ran so he let the driver handle the road. The sense of urgency from two hours ago ate at his patience and he was as likely to remove Patrick's head from his shoulders as look at him but the man kept talking in an apparent effort to calm Derek.

They had only been given so much detail, but right after the fight Deucalion had called to spread the word to expect trouble. It was disturbing to Derek that Deucalion could predict how it would hit him, not only because of what that could mean for Stiles but because Derek did not want that particular alpha to know them that well when they didn't even know it themselves. He didn't want to be one of Deucalion's projects looking to the man for guidance. Stiles wouldn't understand at all.

"Stiles is an idiot," Derek muttered. All the same, idiot or not, he was Derek's idiot. A spot opened up in another lane that could let them go faster and Derek pointed it out. "Hurry up, damnit!" He was just barely not yelling at the other drivers on the road.

 

***

 

The car hadn't stopped fully when Derek opened the door and got out. He found the door open just enough to not be locked and shoved through. He checked the dining room first, following scents and getting impossibly angrier. Kenny stood up from where he sat talking with Braeden and started moving when he saw Derek.

"Upstairs," was all he said. There were three locked doors to pass through and Kenny kept up with Derek just to save the keycard locks and avoid more problems. When Derek asked about Stiles on the way up, Kenny just shook his head and held up his hands.

"He'll heal. Just don't get stupid," he said. Derek snarled, annoyed; telling people not to get stupid was never a good way to make them stay calm.

To Derek's unsettled surprise, they ended up at Deucalion's office. He walked in and saw Stiles sitting on the couch, blood on his shirt and face as he held a cloth to the side of his head. That didn't make him feel any better and an unconscious growl escaped. Stiles looked up at him and then automatically over at Deucalion. The look made Derek pause and check the desk across the room.

"Hale. Leave him alone," the alpha said. Derek was content to ignore the order until it was repeated. He looked to Stiles, met his still sharp gaze and saw the slight nod of his head. Derek derailed and moved reluctantly to the desk, his shoulders tense from the effort not to lash out.

"You left your assignment," Deucalion said, still on edge from whatever had happened at the house while Derek was gone. Seeing that the man was unstable, Derek nodded.

"Just like you knew I would," he said. "But we handled it."

"The others handled it. You cowered in the car," said the alpha.

"I didn't know what was going on," said Derek. The two tempers were notching up. Patrick had showed by then and stood back by the couches so as not to interfere.

"He did what we told him to," the man offered up. "He said he was having problems and we sent him to the car. It was about ten minutes after you called that he said anything. We sent him off twenty minutes after that."

Deucalion calmed then but his expression was no less angry. He looked back to Derek. "Tessa saw to your boyfriend already. He'll live. Providing he can remember to keep his mouth shut."

Derek fidgeted impatiently. Deucalion watched him, his gaze shifting from Derek to Stiles and back again. "You are not the only one here with someone else to worry about," he said, still growly. "Stop acting like it. If you intend to endanger the others it will be a challenge with intent to win."

Derek managed a nod. Deucalion scowled and nodded toward Stiles. "And that is hardly worth anyone here. So I don't encourage it."

Derek bristled but let the insult go. Deucalion seemed satisfied then. "He stays in your room. Get him out. Now."

Considering that was exactly what Derek wanted to do, he didn't wait around for the alpha to change his mind. Derek moved to the couch and saw Stiles already starting to stand. Bloody stripes across his front explained why he was having a hard time pulling himself to his feet. Kenny and Patrick were both nearby but neither moved to help. He was out of the couch by the time Derek got there, a scowl on his face but he was at least upright. When Derek tried to help, Stiles shrugged free, a glare shot back toward Deucalion before he moved for the door. He wasn't any friendlier toward Kenny but the hunter seemed to expect it and just held the door for them.

Stiles wouldn't acknowledge him until they were locked in on the third floor. Then, bloody shirt and all, he caught Derek in a hard hug and tucked his bruised face against his neck. Derek tried to get Stiles to pull back so he could look him over but he just hung on tighter. The only thing he could do then was to tuck around Stiles, pretend a hug could offer the belated protection he should have provided at the start.

"You smell like blood," he finally said, hoping Stiles would catch the hint.

"That's 'cause I'm bleeding," muttered Stiles, his tone holding his usual angry sarcasm. Derek nodded, oddly reassured by it.

"Can we fix that problem?"

"No," Stiles said. The complaint came with a sigh and he let go. His hand brought the wet and red stained rag back up to the cuts that ran from his neck up his jaw. He stayed close but didn't look directly at Derek, more like slightly sideways and quick to look down. Derek was keyed up and trying to come down but Stiles definitely wasn't helping.

"I need someone to tell me _something_ , Stiles. I don't care if I have to go back downstairs-"

"I mouthed off because you weren't here, I was pissed off and Duke was being his usual level of asswipe and he didn't like that I didn't shut up when he told me to and the fucker clawed me." Stiles motioned to his face and then tugged at his shirt, ripped in three places across the ribs. "Tessa had this aconite shit that she packed on it and I'm supposed to leave it all alone until it stops bleeding on its own."

"Shit..."

"I'm not sick, okay? And I'm not gonna bleed out. I'm gonna be fine," Stiles said, stubborn more than informed about anything. Derek caught him by the shoulders, needing to feel the steady heartbeat and thrum of life under his hands. To reassure himself. Stiles had a fever and he was hurting. But he was still alive, still breathing under the pain.

"What the hell did you say?" Derek finally asked, curious. Stiles didn't pull back, just rolled his head a little, his shoulders lifting and then falling under Derek's touch.

"I don't even remember," he said, quiet. "Probably had something to do with his mother and elderberries."

Despite himself, Derek's lips twisted into half a grin. He shook his head because he wanted to cuff Stiles for the stupid challenge but couldn't. There was no point, hours later. He brushed the tiny smile against Stiles' frown. They stood, forehead to forehead, and Derek turned his frustrated anger into an effort to pull some of the pain running through Stiles. He shrunk into Derek's shoulder then and they stood there until his breathing slowed and he could sleep.

 

***


	6. Chapter 6

The keycard didn’t work in the morning. Derek found out that Stiles had lost his rights to the phone for the weekend when he was bleeding out on Deucalion’s couch. Things had changed. Stiles, however, hadn’t. He slept like a man in pain but no nightmares, no screaming, no wild thrashing or sleepwalking like Derek’s betas had shown after the bite. He wasn’t in a coma, he was just asleep. Stiles would be fine. All the same, Derek spent more of the night awake and listening and watching than he had sleeping. Around sun-up he tried to go out into the hall, to wake himself up in the mat room, or just to get some air away from the tension he felt worrying about Stiles. When the keycard didn’t work, he stretched out against Stiles’ side and kept his arm over his stomach, safely below the long claw marks across his ribs but close enough to help how he could until he dozed off.

He was still tired when Tessa showed up, even though the light in the room told him that he and Stiles had slept most of the morning away. They didn’t hear the door beep and Derek woke up to the woman standing half way into the room, trying to get his attention before approaching. She was an EMT before she was a wolf, and in light of the brainwash from Deucalion that had convinced her to kill her pack, she hadn’t gone back to it. But she still handled the pack’s major scrapes more reliably than a hospital could. She tended to Stiles, closing the gashes on his ribs with steri-strips and a bandage to protect it, and a glare as she told him to keep his mouth shut if he liked his head attached to his shoulders.

“Bedside manner needs work, Doc,” Stiles told her as he poked at the bandage on his ribs. “Literally.”

“I don’t find myself using it much so that’s not a surprise,” she replied. Derek tossed a shirt at Stiles and Tessa waited by the door to usher them out to breakfast.

Neither of them was expecting breakfast to be in Deucalion’s office. Derek had expected the man to want them out of sight for a few days. He handed Stiles the cell phone and Derek thought for a second that Stiles was going to collapse.

“Uh...” Stiles stared at the phone in his hand like he had just been given a brick. “You said-”

“And I have not changed my mind,” the alpha replied. He was still angry, his temper short. “It stays in this room.”

So Stiles got his phone call and used it to warn his dad to never piss off a werewolf just for good measure. He still spent sixty percent of the call apparently trying to piss off Deucalion again, dancing around every topic he had ever been told not to touch but never actually crossing the line. Derek kept quiet, slouched in his chair and listening idly to the conversation, focused more on trying to figure out how much pain Stiles was in. Even if they were just scratches and not a bite, it was still inflicted by an alpha and Derek would worry about it for days. The bite wasn’t the gift he had been brought up believing and he liked Stiles just as he was; it wasn’t worth the risk, Stiles didn’t want it, and it wasn’t supposed to have happened.

It seemed to dominate Stiles’ mind as much as it had caught on Derek’s because the phone conversation kept getting around to the fact that fighting wolves caused pain. Derek nudged his knee to catch his attention.

“You’re gonna give the guy a heart attack,” he pointed out, quiet enough not to be heard on the phone. Stiles reluctantly backed out of complain-mode and tried shoving the _‘Nope, everything’s fine, Dad...’_ vibes through the connection. There was a glaring match going on at random between Stiles and Deucalion over it and it seemed to exhaust him.

“Hey, Dad? I wanna go. I’ll call you in a few days, alright?” Stiles asked the phone. It wasn’t his usual goodbye at all, but the conversation hadn’t been normal either. After hanging up, he fidgeted with the phone and looked to Derek.

“I’ve got homework,” he said. It was a very clear hint, even if he wasn’t directly asking Derek’s permission to leave instead of Deucalion’s. The alpha didn’t miss it.

“We’re far from done here, Stiles,” said Deucalion. Stiles arched an eyebrow at that and Derek saw trouble on the way. The phone wasn’t handed back, it was set on the edge of the desk and Stiles stood to leave it there. Rather than let Stiles get stuck with the repercussions of his behavior alone, Derek moved to follow him.

"Wait," Deucalion ordered. Stiles waited, but ignored the implied order to sit back down. Derek didn't and dropped back into his chair.  
"This concerns you," Deucalion said. "So sit."

Not bothering to hide his annoyance, Stiles crashed back into the seat and waited.

"I think it's time we discuss our options in regards to Gerard Argent," the alpha said. "You've been here long enough to pull your own weight."

"We can discuss Gerard," agreed Stiles automatically. "But Allison and Chris still aren't on the table."

"For now," said Deucalion. "I've waited years to get what I want, Stiles. Your moral compass won't last as long as mine."

Stiles glanced over at Derek and, at his silent question, just shrugged. Derek nodded back. He looked to their alpha. The alpha they were stuck with, anyway.

"Fine," said Derek. "Where do we start?"

“With you,” came the cryptic reply. “If I put you in the same room with the man, could you end the war he started with my pack and the others?”

“You mean could I kill him?” asked Derek. Plain English worked fine for him and he didn’t want to guess around Deucalion’s theatrics. The alpha nodded as his only response. Derek shook his head. “The man is already dead. Scott says he can’t even leave a chair.”

“Then it should be easy for you to end it,” said Deucalion.

“You’re assuming the guy can even _be_ killed, here,” said Stiles, snappish. “Black goo, coming out of orifices. Not usually a thing somebody does and survives, but Scott’s seen him. He’s still kicking.”

“Which means he can be killed,” said the alpha. He looked pointedly at Stiles and Derek unconsciously curled his lips in a protective snarl. Deucalion didn’t bother to notice.

“Anything alive must die. It’s universal, Stiles. The only difference is how quickly each living thing meets their end,” he said. Stiles glared back at him, openly annoyed.

“D’you want my opinion on this or not,” he said. “ _You_ told me to stay.”

"I told you yesterday to drop the attitude. I believe there's something wrong with your hearing," said Deucalion. "I will not lose my temper again. But I will send you downstairs to work it out with Kenny."

"Come on-" Derek tried to interrupt only to be very effectively silenced with a glare. Whatever the alpha had to say about it was left unsaid. His cell phone rang.

"Saved by the bell," he said dryly. He answered and listened, then looked at the screen. His glare dragged up to Derek then. "Yes. Bring him up."

Then he was off the phone and angry.

"What did you do?" His question was hardly fair since he was the only one with context. Derek stared at him, confused.

"We've been here for the last half hour," he said. Despite himself, his frustration made it into his voice. "What the hell could we have done?"

The alpha narrowed a glare on Stiles that slowly made him fidget, drop the attitude and act guilty as sin.

"Look, I've done a lot of shit lately, okay," Stiles blurted. "I'm gonna need a hint."

The hint arrived at the office door then. Across the room, Deucalion stood behind his desk to not be caught sitting down, like there was a territorial dispute on the horizon. Derek glanced at Stiles, warning him into quiet as much as wondering what the hell was going on. Stiles' expression had no answers and they both looked over to the door.

Where Peter Hale was being escorted in by Fisher and Chuck.

"Oh, shit," said Stiles. Derek kept quiet and didn't bother standing. Peter smiled at him.

"Nephew," he greeted, cheerful. In the chair beside his, Stiles snapped his attention back to the desk, definitely guilty as sin. Peter walked up between them.

"I believe this is yours?" He handed Stiles a small, unopened shipping box from Amazon. Stiles snatched the box from Peter like he needed to hide it and erase its existence. Peter set a hand to Stiles' head to ruffle his hair, then caught hold to encourage him to look up. Peter clicked his tongue at him.

"That looks like it hurts," he said, hands to himself again. "I'll bet it didn't teach you to shut up any, hmm?"

"To what do we owe this visit, Peter?" Deucalion asked, pulling his attention back. Peter smiled up at him.

"Not long ago, an alarm clock showed up at Derek's apartment with this young man's name on it. I felt it warranted investigation," said Peter. Derek looked to Stiles, shoving back surprise. He shouldn't be surprised. It was Stiles; they should have expected it. He wanted to laugh but Deucalion would probably kill if he did. The alpha's expression said Stiles' days were numbered.

"I wanted an alarm clock," muttered Stiles. "I ordered one with my books and it didn't show up."

Derek lost the battle then, the wry grin slipping past the mask. It wasn't likely the alarm clock had wound up with Peter on accident. Not even Peter fell for that bullshit. He patted Stiles on the head again, then wiped his hand on his shirt front like he had touched something grimy.

"If you're worried about who I told, don't be," said Peter. Stiles glared at him.

"You are seriously the most useless anything ever," he muttered. Derek glared up at the ceiling as Deucalion looked murderous. Peter was completely unoffended.

"Let's see. I had a box. I had a hunch to check my nephew's Amazon account - a _hunch_ , like those worthless deductive reasonings from detective stories - and an address in the purchase history," said Peter. "Now, I thought, why would Stiles be that painfully obvious about it unless there was a problem? And there was, because you aren't at the dojo that was in the address label on the books. You're here. I had to track you. It's a good thing you're fragrant or I'd still be sitting in my car, wondering what the hell I'm doing chasing a dead lead."

Stiles caught Deucalion glaring. He shook his head. "We can just apply yesterday's ass kicking to this situation because yesterday pales in comparison and you could have killed me and this situation is at least more obviously death-inflicting."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Did you insult someone's mother again?"

"You _exist_ just to make my life hell, don't you?" returned Stiles. Peter smiled at him, poked him in the bruised jaw to make him jump as an answer. Then he sighed and looked back to Deucalion.

"At any rate, I came to offer my services," he said. Derek had actually been waiting for that one and slouched in his chair, ankles crossed and hands clasped comfortably to look over at his worthless, conniving uncle. Stiles looked like he wanted to kill something.

"You'll have to explain," said Deucalion. He still stood behind the desk, arms crossed. But he was listening.

"As I see it, you've had my nephew and his pain-in-the-ass for a month now. Which means you want something. And I don't know what the hell that could be, but, it obviously isn't working or at least one of them would be dead by now and the rest of us could get on with our lives."

Stiles moved to kick Peter but Derek caught him with a hand to the knee. He thought about it twice and then tugged Stiles out of his chair and over to Derek's.

"Sit down if you're going to monologue, Peter," he said, annoyed. Peter did, happily, while Stiles stood by Derek's chair, awkward, before he gave up and took over the armrest.

"We're supposed to kill Gerard Argent," said Derek.

"So this is really your thing, not ours," added Stiles. Peter frowned at them.

"How do you kill a dead man?" he asked. Derek arched an eyebrow at that; Peter knew as well as Derek did that Gerard Argent was still alive. Peter ignored him and looked to Deucalion. "Not that I'm arguing... but he is dead."

"He's not," said Deucalion. The alpha was wary but he looked less murderous than curious. "Chris Argent has him in an assisted living home. He's sick but not dead."

"I'm sorry if these two somehow gave you the impression of competence," said Peter. "But Derek is hardly capable of killing. His track record for kills is pretty poor. Hell, the two of them combined aren't good at it. Considering I'm at the top of their hit-list and still here. Apparently Gerard's now on the list."

"Not our fault," said Derek. Peter rolled his eyes.

"My point being that if you want _Derek_ to infiltrate an old folks home you'll be waiting until the apocalypse," he said. "So how do you propose breaking the man out?"

Derek tucked his face against Stiles' arm as Deucalion made fast friends with the enemy omega in his territory.

 

***


	7. Chapter 7

As it turned out, Stiles was right about the twins. They were still on Deucalion's payroll. They were dogging Scott because Scott was still tied to the Argents. Just like Derek, Scott was pulling his own pack together and not recognizing the boundaries of it. He couldn't tell when Scott was lying to him, Scott couldn't tell how far to trust the twins. In Derek's experience, it was going to screw Scott over, true alpha or not, if he couldn't recognize what pack felt like from the alpha side. It wasn't a surprise that Scott was hurting himself by aligning himself with the Argents.

The twins didn't know much more than the location of the assisted living home. But with Peter on board, Deucalion now knew more. Peter had lived at that home for six years. He wasn't a _complete_ coma case for all of them, and Derek had still visited often enough with Laura over the years that he knew his way around inside.

Derek realized later, when he and Stiles were locked up again and Peter had disappeared, that if he and Laura hadn't made their occasional trips back home to check on their comatose uncle, she would still be alive. Peter liked to blame his nurse for Laura's death and their visits were the only reason she had known who Laura was. Just like now, they were the only reason Derek could think of that made him at all useful to Deucalion's scheme. He had been there before and could, with his uncle, work out a way inside that wouldn't have anyone who worked there notice when a patient went missing.

The meeting with Peter and Deucalion had left Stiles in a much better mood. They wanted to move at Christmas when there would be a skeleton crew staff. Which meant to Derek and Stiles that they would be _home_ by Christmas. The only downside to it was that Deucalion had confiscated the laptop and the phone both. Stiles argued about homework and he got the laptop back after the wifi password had been changed. Deucalion seemed to think they would sabotage the operation. Which they would have, and Derek fully intended to. But there would be time for that when they got back into Beacon hills.

"I still don't get it," Stiles said. He stared at the ceiling in the dark, his voice barely not a whisper. "Duke has like twenty people who could have done this for him. He's got the twins. They're still in town. There is literally no reason for the past month, man. He doesn't need us for this."

"He's different now," said Derek. He pushed up on an elbow to look at Stiles. "He can see now, he's calmer and he's more like the alpha my mother knew again. But the guy's _still_ a psycho. It's _not_ going to make sense."

"Nope, that doesn't work for me," said Stiles. He scratched at his arm, the burned five-toed paw print brand healed for the most part, a permanent red over thin-lined black lettering. Derek's didn't have the name and had burned black, just like the triskele on his back.

"Of the two of us then you're the more qualified to dissect the mind of a psycho," said Derek with a shrug and a thin smirk. "So if you've got better, I'm open to the theories."

Stiles glanced at him, narrow eyed at the sarcasm. "I _just_ said I don't have any."

Derek nodded. "And I do. So we'll go with mine and worry about the details maybe someday in the future after we've gotten Melissa to take the trackers out of our arms."

"So a psycho is a psycho is a psycho?" asked Stiles. "That's what we're going with?"

"Once a psycho, always a psycho," said Derek. Stiles frowned and went back to staring at the ceiling.

"I guess that works. For now," he allowed. "Kinda like once an alpha, always an alpha. You get rewired and don't forget how it worked."

"Maybe I sucked at it but I wasn't a psycho," Derek said, slightly defensive. Stiles smirked at him.

"And yet I was apparently one of your little alpha-minions and you _just_ said I'm qualified to dissect the mind of a psycho," he said. Derek stared at him, stuck for a long moment on what to tell him. Or if he should tell him at all.

"Not a minion. I think I maybe had that wrong," he said finally. "I just assumed it was pack that I was relying on with you. And it kind of is. But... it might have been this." He motioned vaguely to the non-existent space between them. Stiles stared over at him, surprise obvious.

"What's that-"

"Remember when you were trying to figure it out? If pack came with the... other stuff?"

Stiles nodded quickly. "Vividly. Embarrassment doesn't die."

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. It only made him carry on with his own embarrassment. "I should have it sorted out but I don't, so I've been trying. But I've never been at the top long enough to know what I was doing. And... Look, the point is, you’re in this because of me, but it’s not because you were pack. It’s... look, I’m just guessing."

At the expense of his slashed ribs, Stiles shoved himself up to look him directly in the face, make him stop hiding, because Stiles was a jerk like that. Derek huffed, frustrated.

“Okay, you’re guessing what then?” asked Stiles. But instead of the censure or offense he had expected to hear, he heard the _old_ -Stiles, the curious one before he got angry. “I’m here anyway, psychos or not. But if you’re figuring it out, tell me. Maybe I can, I dunno, help or something. You can do anything the rest of those assholes can do, so work it out...”

It wasn’t at all what Derek was expecting. He floundered, not because of what he was trying to sort out but because of Stiles’ openness to it. It took him a moment to get back on track. “Well... it’s more specific. If it were just pack, if it was just the instinct to protect the group... you would have left. You didn’t think to go protect Scott and the others when you had the chance. You were more... focused than that. I know I am, anyway.”

“Oh... boy...” Stiles seemed to catch on and the curious expression went to surprise. But he’d said he wanted to work through it so Derek kept going.

“With Isaac and Erica and Boyd, I tried to protect them. I had to. No questioning it. I told them at the start. When one got in trouble, protect the pack first, and then help. It was just... instinct. That’s just not an option here.”

“But I’m the only one left anyway,” reasoned Stiles. Derek shook his head.

“Isaac. Jackson,” he said. “They're still there. It’s kind of like living with a ghost following you around. You know they’re there.”

“Even when you’re not an alpha anymore?”

To that, Derek could only shrug. “That’s the only way I can describe it. Just this heavy... awareness. I couldn’t find them anymore, but I can tell they’re not here.”

“So you get that from me or what-”

“I can still find you. I knew when you got in the fight even though I didn’t know what was happening,” said Derek. “Like I said, more focused.”

Stiles had sat up by then, cross legged and facing Derek. Careful of his ribs, he leaned his elbows on his knees and stayed close. He still went almost silent, his face flitting through a dozen expressions Derek could only guess at making sense of.

“There’s nothing huge, I’m just trying to figure out where things go,” said Derek, trying to shove off the fear of scaring Stiles with things he could probably never understand. He wasn’t a wolf, there were senses and reflexes and instincts that he just didn’t have. Derek might as well be talking Greek at him.

“The thing you were at yesterday. Lots of people, right?” Stiles asked suddenly. Derek frowned at him.

“Yeah...”

“Crazy perfumes and loud noise and just the kind of stuff that put you on edge?” Derek nodded at the question and Stiles scrunched his nose. He scrubbed at his hair and looked right at Derek. “I wanted to run. About an hour after you left, I just started getting anxious. Everything was on my nerves. Then Duke showed up and - bamn! Target practice.”

Derek blinked at him, not quite believing it. Stiles gnawed at a fingernail. “I dunno, man. Are they related? Is that a pack thing or the other thing?”

“The other,” said Derek slowly. “I _think_. I’ve never had to worry about the difference before.”

“What’s the other thing?” asked Stiles.

Derek froze up. “Can I _not_ answer that and we revisit this later?” _Or_ _never_ , as never was suddenly a lot less intimidating than talking Greek at Stiles. Stiles shoved at his shoulder.

“Werewolf, man-wolf, part wolf... _wolf_ is still part of the equation. Wolves have mates. Is that what this is?” he asked, adamant.

“I don’t know-”

“Yeah, you’re guessing. Come on, man. I don’t know either but I don’t know what you don't know...”

“Yes, it’s what it sounds like,” said Derek, and he felt like he needed to back off from unloading so much more on him that he didn’t ask for. Stiles reached over and put a hand over his mouth.

“You already apologized, if you do it again I will claw you or something,” he warned, determined. “I’m not blaming you for something in my head. Or at least, that I thought was in my head, but apparently isn’t.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Derek said.

“It’s weird though,” said Stiles, and Derek tensed. Stiles shook his head to dismiss the fear. “I’m not a wolf. Which, yeah, doesn’t matter. But I mean... I sicced my dad on you at the start. _He’s gonna get away, don’t let him get away..._ and even Scott thought I was wrong.”

“Which you were,” said Derek, bitter on principle.

“Yeah, but you’re not getting it. I think you’re right _now_ because even when I didn’t like you, I didn’t want you to go anywhere. I busted my ass for you, man, since day one. Same as Scott.” Stiles studied his hands, scrubbed at the worn knee of his jeans, and he shrugged. “If you wanna get sappy about the mate thing, about not knowing the difference, maybe neither one of us could read it right. The pattern is there. We just weren’t paying attention before.”

With a careful nod, Derek let out the breath he’d been holding. “So maybe it’s not so weird then. Pretty much like normal,” he said. “We’re never gonna get ahead of anything. Everything has to smack us in the face.”

Stiles grinned at him. “I just want to agree now we’re not picking out curtains or anything because I already know that will be a disaster because you’re probably colorblind and I will _not_ be that guy in the mall arguing about the difference between maroon and forest green when I haven’t even graduated high school.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed at the wisecrack. “I’m not color blind,” he said. Stiles arched an eyebrow.

“What color is my shirt?”

It was dark in the room and the moon was just bright enough to wreak havoc on Derek’s sight. “Gray?”

Stiles smiled at him, smug and annoying. He reached over and started poking Derek’s face in a clear effort to rile him. “Nope. Blue. Let’s stick with my theory pending further testing.”

Derek caught his hand and pulled it away from his mouth. “I’m not a lab rat for science, Stiles.”

And then they argued about science having no place in the bedroom until the bruised but determined Stiles carefully managed to convince Derek otherwise. The heavier matters of the day were all but forgotten until Stiles’ damn alarm clock went off the next morning.

 

***


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning was a Sunday. The end of the week would be Christmas. Under very close supervision, Stiles dutifully finished up the previous week's homework and declared himself on winter break. (His homework assignments declared otherwise.) He stole a duffle bag from the basement and Derek watched him load his books and the laptop into it, even left room for the alarm clock. Then he realized it looked suspicious that he was only taking things that he had purchased in some form or another and filled the rest of the space with clothes. He was ready to go home. They weren't scheduled to leave for two days, but when they were, Stiles would be ready to walk out the door.

Derek just shook his head and left him to it. On his own, he considered leaving the gas stove on and unlit when they finally did get to leave. He had a pack, it was strong and safe so far, but he didn't want to come back to it when he had Beacon Hills. If the mansion base-camp went up like match sticks while no one was home, too damn bad.

As much as he wanted to be done with the place though, it would take half the forest with it if it went up in flames. That would be a waste; there were other ways to break from a pack. Isaac had, even though Derek still struggled with that. He wasn't an alpha, he wasn't part of Scott's pack, but he was still stuck with the fact that he had given Isaac the bite. It was no different than with Jackson. He wouldn't have that problem to deal with from Deucalion though so as soon as they got home, as soon as the trackers were out, Derek would figure out how to cut the ties in his head that made him feel safe around a pack of psycho alphas. But he could only move one day at a time.

Those days were infinitely more irritating with his uncle hanging out. Stiles was still on lockdown, so when they weren't in their room, they were the alpha's shadows. Stiles directed his urge to argue at Peter, a much safer target, and Deucalion settled down about his tendency to smart-off when he saw that the challenges were nothing personal.

Peter was far too nice to Deucalion, completely sympathetic to the man's use of force, kidnap, and the torture of a larger group to get his way. But Deucalion didn't hand out any job applications, Derek noticed, and Peter didn't ask to sign up. They talked about the Argents. They talked about hunters like they were peasants who interfered with their lives as werewolves, like they were the upper class. Deucalion had the money and connections for that role, but Derek knew that Peter did not. He was certain Peter wasn't genuinely enthusiastic that Derek had a pack without him, because he was Peter and slightly delusional and Derek was supposed to be his trailing sidekick like when they were kids. Peter couldn't bully and boss if somebody else had the job. It occurred to Derek that his uncle was trying to play the alpha, but he couldn't figure out Peter's angle.

Derek sat and kept quiet, watched, with an arm around Stiles to ease some of the pain from his ribs and keep him from starting world war three because pain made him cranky. There was too much they didn't know, pieces Deucalion seemed to be intentionally keeping from him that Derek suspected his uncle had figured out. Peter was usually a cocky piece of work, but Derek had never been winked at so many times in his life.

With less than 18 hours before they would leave to return to Beacon Hills, Peter and Deucalion had fallen into their favorite topic again - the Plan - and Derek thought about going over to join them in it for appearances sake. He didn't, however, because Stiles' heart rate suddenly jackrabbitted. Stiles was awake and had been fine until then. Derek looked over at him and saw that his sudden moment of terror had caught Peter and Deucalion's attention too.

"Stiles?" The alpha asked, causing yet another panic surge from the teenager.

"There's a slight problem with your plan," said Stiles.

"And that is?" Deucalion asked. Stiles motioned between himself and Derek.

"We're in this country illegally. We have no ID, no passports..."

The concern wasn't shared. Deucalion shook his head. "You'll get back in the same way you got out."

Stiles slowly nodded and slouched further on the couch. "Yeah, figured that's what you'd say."

Peter looked from the traumatized expression on Stiles' face - Derek knew he wasn't much better but he looked out the windows to hide - to deal with Deucalion again. "How'd they get out?"

"Locked in a crate," said the alpha, absolutely unconcerned.

"Both in the same crate?" Peter looked over at Derek again, waved a hand at how he was sprawled into Stiles' space. "Christ. You can’t even keep to yourselves on the couch. Just keep in mind, if Border Patrol calls in the dogs, you're Canadians for the rest of your lives."

Derek and Stiles both glared at him. But Derek reluctantly admitted the crate wouldn't be as painful this time around. He shrugged and caught Stiles' attention.

"Science," he said quietly, lips tugged into a tiny grin. Stiles considered it and then nodded.

"Okay. Well, that could be fun."

 

***

 

As it turned out, the crate was a lot more fun the second time around.

 

***

 

"They sent me in because I'm family, but that doesn't mean I want to _see_ anything," came Peter's voice through the box lid. Along with it came the clanking of the lock in the latch. Stiles kicked the box side as a hint to wait. They were enjoying the dark, shared space. Carefully seated on his legs, Derek started trying to put himself back together without breaking their kiss. Still very invested, Stiles seemed to be working toward the exact opposite goal for their clothes and Derek was five seconds from offering to stay in the box for another hour.

"Really? I expected better from the two of you. It can wait until you get home, but no, that would make too much _sense_..." said Peter.

Mentioning the word _Home_ shook their priorities a little. Stiles stopped interfering and sat up to start blindly hunting for their shirts. Derek went from his knees to crouching and then braced a hand on the lid to push. He stood, blinking in the dim light of the truck, and soon recognized his uncle's glare. Derek smirked when Stiles tossed a shirt up at him

"Are you kidding me?" he said. "You don't get points for creativity. It's a truck _bed_." Stiles tossed a pillow at him for it. Peter sighed. "Put your stupid shirt on."

Stiles stood up then, presentable if ruffled, and Peter still stood in front of the box, blocking their easy exit. He looked to Derek. "Why'd you give your car to the McCalls?"

"Because I got shanghaied to _Canada_ and you have one that works fine," replied Derek.

"Why didn't you bring help?" Stiles cut in with the far more important question. Peter frowned at him.

"I am helping," said Peter. "Next time be more specific in your clues if you want a battalion raid at dawn. I got a freaking alarm clock, okay?"

“You obviously figured it out,” returned Stiles. “You couldn’t have said anything to anyone?”

“No. I didn’t want to piss off the local sheriff if I was wrong,” said Peter. “I told you.”

Surprised, Derek stood motionless even as Peter stepped back to wave them out of the box. His uncle had just lied. He reached out and unapologetically dug into Peter’s pocket. When Peter started to protest, and Stiles looked slightly mortified, Derek held a hand up to motion for silence and brought the cell phone out that he had been hunting for. The theft was accepted with a roll of the eyes and sigh from Peter. He crossed his arms and waited as Derek checked the recent calls. He spotted a familiar number called within the last twelve hours and held it over to show Stiles. Immediately the phone was snatched away and pocketed, Stiles equally as unapologetic for the phone theft. A scuffle broke out and Derek shoved Peter back, using the box to help keep the phone.

“You’ll get it back,” he said, voice so quiet it was more like a hiss.

“Yeah, before or after you get me killed?” said Peter. Derek jumped out of the box and shoved Peter toward the truck’s back gate in a hint. Stiles followed when it was safe. He had his hoodie and kept fussing with it to make sure it hid the phone in his jeans pocket. Derek realized he still hadn’t gotten into his shirt and waited for Stiles to catch up at the door. He dragged him into a shamelessly unnecessary kiss because things were going their way for the first time in over a month and he needed the outlet. The only one who complained was Deucalion, the alpha standing not far from the door and huffing in annoyance. Stiles was smiling like a canary-fed cat when he pounced down from the truck and Derek didn’t shrug into his shirt until he had his feet on the ground.

“Not everyone wants to know, Derek,” Deucalion said mildly. Derek shrugged.

“And yet they know anyway, so I can’t say I care,” he replied.

“Come on,” said Stiles. He looked over at the alpha, his nose scrunched, grin only faded slightly in the glare of sunlight outside. “You kept me around all this long for a reason. Financial compensation was on the table and everything, man. You gonna tell me how to do my job now?”

“Don’t let it interfere with _his_ job and we’ll get along better,” said Deucalion.

“No, you won’t,” said Peter, ever-so helpful. He cast a glare at Derek and then Stiles. “There are reasons the boy doesn't have many friends.”

“Funny enough, most of those reasons are your fault,” Stiles replied. “Stay outta my face or don’t be surprised if this plan of yours turns into a two’fer on dead-bastards.”

“Knock it off,” cut in Derek. Still he had to hide his amusement at the verbal sparring; it was the first time in months that Stiles _hadn’t_ meant it when he offered to see Peter dead.

Probably because of the arguing, Deucalion volunteered Derek for driving - _“Your uncle has driven four hours already, you’re plenty rested.”_ \- and took the passenger seat for himself. It stuck Stiles and Peter in the backseat of Peter’s car and Peter scowled the whole time. The few times Derek glanced back at them, Stiles was slouched against the window with the phone, texting or playing games, he couldn’t tell. For the most part though, Derek kept his eyes on the road. He was so damn glad to be driving himself somewhere for the first time in weeks that he didn’t even pay attention to the posted speed limits. If Deucalion was concerned about the highway patrol and speeding tickets, he didn’t say anything.

About an hour into Derek’s shift as driver, movement in the back caught Derek’s attention and he looked to the mirror in time to see Stiles set the phone on the seat next to Peter. Then all he saw in the rearview was Stiles as he climbed up in between the seats, his elbows resting on the two seats. Deucalion seemed to take the _ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away_ track and hardly looked over at them. Derek carefully split his attention between the road and Stiles.

“What?” he finally asked, suspicious when Stiles just hung at his shoulder and grinned. He felt Stiles shrug.

“Bored. Where are we?”

“Twenty minutes from the Oregon border,” said Derek.

“So eight hours and twenty minutes from the California border,” clarified Stiles. Derek nodded. “And then like four hours from home.”

“Home,” echoed Deucalion. Derek’s good mood faded a little. Stiles looked over at the alpha.

“Yeah, what of it?” he asked.

“It begs the question, will you be staying when Derek returns to his pack?”

“You’re assuming he does,” Stiles pointed out. Deucalion nodded.

“I’m assuming he succeeds at what he’s been tasked with and understands where he belongs,” the alpha said, not at all hesitant in his gamble. “And that it is not Beacon Hills.”

Derek kept his mouth shut, too used to people talking about him like he wasn’t there lately to get involved in something that would only cause trouble. He was driving. He was going to drive all the damn way to Beacon Hills if they let him, just to be sure he got that far. Beacon Hills was home and Deucalion’s pack could get stuffed. He felt Stiles’ gaze turn to him and Derek just set his jaw, all the more determined not to say anything. Then he felt Stiles in his space, felt the now familiar press of his lips against his neck trace up to his jaw. There was no missing the way the kisses silently mouthed the word _home_ against his skin.

“Like hell you’re wrecking _my_ car,” Peter complained suddenly. Derek was grinning when Peter pulled Stiles by the hood to drag him back into his own seat.

 

***

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Derek was exhausted when they finally arrived in Beacon Hills. He didn't get to drive the whole way, which made it worse. He had something resembling normal, the freedom to drive an open road, to think about his loft. And then, just as suddenly, he got the backseat again, locked in by childlocks. It renewed the anger he had buried weeks earlier and he stewed in it for hours, refusing to voice any of it and risk getting home. Then, when he got there, the car pulled up to his apartment and all he wanted to do was curl up in his own bed and sleep. As soon as the car door was opened, Stiles raced him to it, though he was certain a race defied every motivation for passing out.

"Derek, a word before you go," said Deucalion. He waited at his own car, Kenny behind the wheel and Chuck forfeiting the passenger seat. They had a skeleton crew of their own, and Derek liked the sudden thought of just three to three odds. Then he noticed another car pull into the lot, this one driven by Fisher, with two other alphas as passengers. That changed things. He frowned and moved back to talk.

"What?" he asked. It was nearly midnight and lightly raining but Deucalion wasn't in a hurry. He nodded toward the opposite end of the parking lot where it wrapped around the building. To Derek’s surprise, he saw his car parked alongside what looked like the tarp-covered shape of Stiles' jeep.

"Remember what I told you a few weeks ago?" Deucalion asked, drawing Derek's attention back.

"I didn't know my car would be here," he said, honestly confused. "I gave it to-"

"I know. I was there at the time," said Deucalion. "And so I remind you, do not play me. Whatever you think you have gained this week, I promise you that you are wrong."

"We're not-"

"We're here to help you, Derek. This is your backup. Don't waste that. Don't forget it," said the alpha. "By helping you, we help the pack."

"Yeah, backup, but you're not getting that it's backup for something I don't want to do," said Derek. "That's not _helping_."

"You'll be stronger for it, you'll understand. You can _finish_ the fight your mother lost. The only one she _ever_ lost." Deucalion seemed absolutely certain about that. And the worst part was that he was right. All that Derek had lost was because of Gerard Argent. He could start to have a life again with that fight won.

"I don't want to start my own war with Chris and the others," Derek said finally. "It won't solve anything. It'll just start over with Allison. And Scott."

"I'll handle Chris," said Deucalion, seemingly sincere. "I told you, you have backup. Let me help finish it."

Thinking it over, Derek looked away, over at the two cars parked not-so-carefully hidden across the lot. Stiles had done something. There were still options. He shook his head and looked over at the alpha wolf who had so carefully connived every part of Derek's life for the last month.

"Not that I have much choice," he said. Deucalion tilted his head, a small smile on his face. He clapped a hand to Derek's shoulder.

"We'll be back in the morning. As we planned," he said. Derek nodded, watched as the man got in the car. The two cars pulled away, out of the lot and out of sight. Derek stayed outside for a few more minutes, checked his car, walked the lot. He felt like he could think for the first time in a month. He was by himself, no one watching, no one in his space. He was home. A little water wouldn't kill him. Making the wrong call would do a lot worse than that.

 

***

 

The loft was exactly like he had left it. The only notable difference was there was a Stiles sprawled across the bed when Derek finally walked in; that was a new sight, and slightly daunting. Back in context, Stiles had a life and people to accommodate, and there was the detail that he was the seventeen year old only-child of the county sheriff. They were home; things were real now.

There was no more holding pattern, no waiting on a fanatic to make a move, no more barely hanging on to his head, no more following orders to keep Stiles out of trouble. Derek could hide in his apartment and just stay there... Until Deucalion tried the same trick over again, hurt someone else to drag Derek out.

All the same, false security that it was, he was home. Derek started toward sleep only to have his uncle get in the way.

"Let's have a chat," said Peter. It was the friendly voice, the one Derek knew well enough lead to nothing good. Derek glared at him. Peter smiled back and stayed in Derek's space, a physical barrier between him and his bed. He saw the look and his eyebrows danced, taunting. He held up his phone with it's handy little camera feature. "You realize the second you sleep, I'm loading up on a year's worth of blackmail, right?"

Rather than humor Peter's bad ideas, Derek waited, arms crossed as he glowered at his uncle. "So talk."

Peter glanced back at Stiles but apparently judged him to be genuinely asleep enough to be a non-issue. He studied Derek a moment longer than necessary. "What are you going to do about Gerard?"

"I'll figure that out when I get there," said Derek. "They can plan all they want but I'll have options."

"How do you figure? You're screwed either way, Derek," said Peter. "Me showing up jump started things maybe, got you down here to get some help, but you know Duke and his guys. I don't. We’ve got Scott and Stilinski. The rest of us can help, but..."

The annoyance faded as Derek struggled to catch the point. "What?"

Peter shook his head and waved a hand as though that would make him catch up with the conversation. "You have backup but I'm just saying, don't expect _ideas_ -"

"No, I get that. What do you mean I'm screwed either way?" Derek asked. Since when did Peter care one way or the other about the Argents opinions on his worthiness to live? Derek's interest was only a recent one, and that was more by association than a genuine concern for anything other than his own skin. Peter stared at him like he had lost his mind.

"Are you dense? You really think you can knock off that old man?"

Derek shrugged, noncommittal to the bitter end. "If it will end things-"

It surprised him when Peter shoved at his shoulder, as though to smack sense into his brain. " _You_ turned him. I was _right_ there. That's all yours, buddy," said Peter. "That's why your new alpha wins if you move. Alpha or not, if you kill one of your own, Duke gets the power boost."

The logic hit Derek hard, knocking the wind out of him. "I didn't- Scott -"

"It doesn't much matter, does it? It's not as romantic as your democratic approach with the kids maybe, but you bit the old bastard. He's yours," said Peter. "Duke is jumping you in on his little gang the same way he jumped-in the rest. A beta challenges him, he dies. Gerard? His _existence_ is a challenge. If you kill him to do the rest of the world a favor, you show loyalty to Deucalion. Minor, insignificant, detail he’s got you over a barrel for killing a defenseless old man in an assisted living facility. And then you get your brain scrambled again, just like after what happened to Boyd. But that's two betas down, so you're pretty well amped up on spirit-juice if that’s what he’s after."

The casual dismissal added anger to the knotted emotional tangle in Derek's head. He reacted without thinking, reaching out and grabbing his uncle by the shirtfront. The brewing fight didn't get far before Derek saw Stiles sitting up on the bed, staring at them. He would have heard Peter just fine. Releasing Peter, Derek shook his head to try to get ahead of the bad report. Stiles beat him to it.

"What about me and Isaac?" he asked, cautious.

"You'll be fine," said Derek quickly. The look Stiles gave him managed to call him a liar and back it up with the too-fresh memory of Derek being puppeteered into attacking him.

"You don't know that, though," said Stiles. Derek shook his head.

"Yes I do. For the simple fact that you're not a wolf. Even if you're pack, to him you're just a means to an end because you aren't a Wolf. He can't profit off you without biting you."

"Not something he'd be broken up about doing," replied Stiles. He tugged his shirt up to show the fresh bandages over too-scarred ribs already. Derek shut his eyes and focused on just breathing for awhile. Stiles started in lecturing on what they needed to do and Derek just shook his head.

"Stiles! Stop!" It wasn't quite a shout but it was equal parts angry and desperate. Derek needed to figure it out on his own. He needed to not be bullied just for a few hours, even by Stiles. "I get it, okay? Just let me handle it. For once."

It seemed to work and Stiles quieted. After a minute or so of tense quiet, Peter tried to talk again but Derek walked over to collapse on the couch rather than listen. He flopped into his stomach and held a pillow over his head. Peter must have caught the hint because the man finally left to go upstairs.

Derek was no closer to any answer when, instead of be left alone, he felt weight shift the couch pillows and then Stiles stretched out at his back. He seemed to have forgotten that he wasn't a blanket, legs snug up against Derek's, arms tucked in along Derek's sides. Shoving one pillow away, Stiles tucked his chin over Derek's shoulder and shared the other.

"You're heavy, get off," muttered Derek, stubborn more than inconvenienced by Stiles' buck-fifty-and-change pinning him down.

"You're a werewolf, make me," said Stiles in reply. It surprised no one that Derek eventually fell asleep with Stiles wrapped around like a shield between him and the rest of the world.

 

***

 

When Deucalion showed up the next morning, Derek was outside to meet him. He had Stiles with him, just for the sake of appearances. But he didn't let the alpha get out of the car; he met him at the window in a clear hint and Deucalion allowed it. The window rolled down and Derek leaned on the door to talk.

"I'm changing the plans," Derek said. Deucalion didn't look impressed with the announcement.

"Really?"

"Yep," said Derek. "And you're my backup down here, so you're gonna let me do it. My way."

"And what would this entail?"

"I'll let you know."

"I don't think so."

"You can either fight me on this or trust me," Derek reasoned. He shrugged. "How bad do you want me on your team?"

Deucalion seemed to weigh it out, staring back at Derek with the long stare of a blind man. This one could see. His gaze darted from Derek to Stiles beyond him and then back.

"Are you lying?"

"Nope," said Derek, not surprised at all by the direct challenge. It was the easiest baseline, a yes or no answer that Deucalion knew how to read from Derek. "But this is my turf. Not yours. And Gerard is my responsibility, not yours."

Deucalion allowed a dry grin. "So you caught on. It took you long enough."

Derek didn't say anything, just narrowed his eyes and stood back from the car.

"When should I expect a call?" asked Deucalion, patient suddenly.

Derek shrugged. "This afternoon maybe. Tonight if not."

"Then good luck," the alpha said. The window rolled up and the two cars made their way back out of the parking lot. Derek crossed his arms and waited until they were out of sight before he looked back to Stiles. The teen was just shoving away from the wall of the building and moving out to meet him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, curious and completely smug about Derek's small success.

"Get you to your dad," said Derek.

"Yeah, but I meant-"

"I'm making it up as I go," said Derek. "That's why we need your dad on board."

 

***

 

It was a really bad idea. Derek was glad they took separate cars. He sat in his car in front of the Stilinskis’ place, hands wrapped around the steering wheel like vice grips. Stiles stood by the jeep and waited, impatient, as Derek tried to talk himself into driving away. He had stuff to do still. The last thing he needed was to deal with the freakin’ sheriff of the county because oh-by-the-way he had been actually sleeping with the man’s son for a month. Oh, yeah, _seventeen_ year old son. If Stiles mentioned the unproven _mate_ theory anywhere in his father’s hearing, Derek would be roasted on a spit.

Back at home, surrounded by the familiar and the way things were supposed to be, Derek was having a hard time adjusting to what was or wasn’t “normal” but he _was_ certain that how he and Stiles had hooked up was far from normal. When they were safe, it was great, but everything else was bad. They stuck together because they had to with Deucalion’s pack. It wasn't the story a father of an only child would want to hear for his son. If Stiles was smart, he would just stay at his dad’s, wish Derek well and hope he went back to Canada. And his dad was going to be the first person to advocate that and Derek had absolutely no right to argue about it.

The driver’s door opening actually caught Derek by surprise. He stared at Stiles, confused how he had managed to _teleport_ from the Jeep to the driver’s door of the Toyota. And he was scowling. And then he had a hold of Derek’s jacket collar and was making it very obvious that there was no avoiding the sheriff.

“My dad’s not going to kill you, man. It was a joke. Let’s go,” said Stiles.

“Charges of kidnap and assault aren’t exactly out of the question though,” Derek replied mildly. All the same, he slid out of the truck and locked it up. Stiles turned on him then, the both of them standing in the street with the truck between them and the house.

“Yeah, they seriously are,” Stiles told him. He was so serious he was angry. “Don’t screw with me on this, Derek. We’re home, okay? We’re staying. That’s _we_ , as in you, plus me, the both of us. Whatever we got going now, it’s _us_. So don’t go convincing yourself I’m some kind of better off with you gone now. I’m not Isaac. It won’t work. We are _so far_ past that point.”

Derek laughed under his breath and nodded. “You’re not Isaac,” he agreed. Stiles calmed down a little and seemed to take a breath.

“Then don’t sit in the car like you’re gonna leave,” Stiles said, waving toward the door still just a few feet away. He met Derek’s gaze and shoved his shoulder, finally letting go of his jacket. “I wanna go see my dad. He’s gonna want to see you. That’s how this works, man.”

“It’s not over with yet, Stiles. It could go... wrong,” Derek said.

“Fine, then when it goes wrong, we’ll deal with it,” came the reply, short but not dismissive. “But for now?”

“Yeah, now we don’t have to deal with it.”

“Just a half an hour,” said Stiles, still selling it. Derek nodded.

“Just go see your dad,” he replied. Stiles stared at him, weighing it out. Then he caught Derek’s jacket again, swiped off imaginary dirt and straightened the collar he had rumpled. He muttered something about first impressions and Derek headed back for the driver’s door. Stiles was smiling when he caught him in a hug to block his path. He cinched his hold tighter until Derek wrapped his arms around him in return. It felt good and felt like it pulled some of the stress and anxiety that Derek carried too close.

“So I know my dad’s gonna say it when he sees you,” Stiles said, voice quiet and right at Derek’s ear. “And I haven’t said it ‘cause we’re not done. I know that. But he’s not gonna say it before I do. So thank you.”

Derek shook his head to try to get Stiles off a potentially disastrous track. Derek had a tenuous grasp on his ability to just deal as it was. Stiles tucked in impossibly closer but he wouldn’t shut up.

“I told you not to roll over and you ignored me and it worked. You did what you did ‘cause you were worried about me and you wanted to get me home and you did. So now we fix it so we can _stay_ ,” he said.

“You are staying,” said Derek, his voice somehow not as wavering as the rest of him felt. He was leaning on the truck and penned in by Stiles, and still just wanted to curl up and rest. Stiles pulled back enough to look at him; no more hiding.

“ _We_ are staying, or _we_ are going. I _know_ I just broke that down for you a minute ago,” he said. Despite himself, Derek relaxed again. He believed it. However everything worked out, Stiles intended to follow him back to the pack if he had to. It was a safety net Derek didn’t want to use but he didn’t know how much he had needed to know it was there. He rested his forehead to Stiles’, took a breath and felt a little strength come back.

“Thank you,” he said in return, even though there was no way he could say what for if pressed about it. Stiles didn’t and instead tilted his head to catch a kiss. It didn't last long enough and Derek forgot for a second that they were hiding behind his car, in front of Stiles' house. Stiles started to untangle himself.

"Nope. In the house," he said, suddenly very determined. "I want to survive the day without getting wrecked. You're bad enough, seeing dad's gonna kill me, just- ugh." Stiles wiped his face into his elbow and shoved at Derek with his free hand. "Go. In. Now."

Derek's lips twisted up for a flash of a second. He stole another kiss before he walked with Stiles to the house.

 

***


	10. Chapter 10

It was hours away from Christmas but the house was bare. And empty. No decorations or Christmas trees or jolly tan-suited sheriffs. Stiles announced that the kitchen hadn't been used in a week and there was no food to steal from the fridge.

"So he's at work," said Derek. "And I don't care what you say, I am not walking in to the sheriffs department until I know my face isn't on a poster."

"He's not at work," said Stiles. They had found that morning that his cell phone had been left in Derek's loft, along with his car keys, so he had already sent out three texts as they searched the house. "He's at Scott's."

That sobered Derek quick. "If I go to Scott's and someone's following us it won't end well."

"Yep. He's on his way back," said Stiles.

"No Scott?"

"No Scott," confirmed Stiles, waving the phone in his hand as though that answered everything. He looked up suddenly at Derek, confused expression on his face.

"What?" asked Derek. Stiles grinned.

"Nothin," he said. "I've just never seen you in my house when you weren't a fugitive sneaking in my windows. You walked in through the front door this time and everything."

Derek narrowed his eyes, not as amused by the observation at all.

 

***

 

A few minutes passed. Stiles walked around the house checking things, making sure his stuff hadn't disappeared over the month. Derek went with him, sizing up the house and it's owner and catching faint hints of Stiles' scent at random places.

"You're sure your dad wasn't at the station?" Derek asked. "This close to Christmas, the place is probably busy..."

"No, he called in sick," said Stiles. "I told him we would see him today. When I took Peter's phone..."

"Yeah, figured." Derek pulled out his own phone then, toyed with the screen. Then noise from the porch caught his attention. Stiles noticed him and looked toward the front hall.

"Stiles!" came the sheriff's voice from the door. Stiles dropped a stack of mail he had been sorting through and ran for his dad. They collided more than hugged, just a few feet inside the door. Derek made sure no one snuck in behind the sheriff and closed the door, staying out of the way as best as he could.

There were things Derek had missed out on in life that he didn't think about too much. His own father was one of them, and his adult life had been entirely parent-free. So the combination of absolute relief and simultaneous anger and worry that he could read from the sheriff confused Derek. Stiles was safe, that was what mattered, right? In that moment, Derek didn't see what could have made the man _mad_. Then the sheriff carefully caught Stiles' face in his hands, paying attention to the healing stripes just where his neck met his jaw, and Derek figured he understood. The sheriff didn't just see that _one moment_ of his kid; he saw a whole month and one week without him. As the party responsible for the absence, Derek started to ease back. The sheriff turned a sharp gaze up at him.

"You stay where you are," he said, his tone an order that expected to be obeyed. Derek didn't argue. Stiles looked on, his face still scrunched by his dad’s shoulder.

"Dad-"

"Are you alright?" the sheriff asked over him. "I've got Melissa on speed dial, she's just waiting for word-"

"I'm fine-"

The two broke apart and the sheriff still hung on to his son’s shoulders like he needed a tether. "Really? Werewolves attacked on Saturday and you're fine on Thursday?"

"I swear," said Stiles. He bared his teeth to imitate Derek and Scott's fang-faces. "No claws or unfortunate sudden hair growth..."

"If that was the case, Melissa couldn't really help that at this point anyway," added Derek reasonably. He didn't want to interrupt, but he didn't want Stiles' father to misunderstand the basics. Stilinski glanced at him but kept his attention on Stiles.

"You're alright?" he asked again.

"I'm fine," Stiles repeated. The sheriff looked torn on if he believed him or not. Derek knew that feeling well enough. Then Stiles jumped at his dad for another hug.

"I promise, I'm fine," Stiles said, his voice muffled by his dad's jacket hood. "We're safe, okay? We have some stuff we gotta do to make this shit go away, but I'm good. Derek's good. We're home."

"Good," said the sheriff. "Go start some damn coffee because you're not leaving anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on. A goddamn month, Stiles..."

Stiles pulled back, hands still in fists to hang on to his dad's jacket, and his smile had faded. "It's not done yet, Dad. I might have to leave again. I don't know yet."

"Not happening," said the sheriff. "No. I will handcuff you to your damn desk-"

Stiles shook him by the shoulder. "Dad! I'm not kidding-"

"No, you're my kid, so whatever you're tangled in can just deal with me instead," Stilinski promised.

"I can handle it," insisted Stiles. That got a laugh.

"Yeah, I see the proof of that right there on your neck, kiddo."

"Sheriff, he's not lying," offered Derek. "We've got it figured out now. If we have to leave again, he won't... Find trouble this time."

Stiles nodded quickly. "But that's a big _if_ , as in it won't even happen."

The sheriff looked less than convinced. "Are you gonna tell me what _it_ is?"

Stiles shut his mouth and shook his head. Derek was so thankful. The sheriff wasn't.

"Will you at least tell me where you've _been_?" he asked.

Stiles grinned at him, the broad, unholy, dangerous one too devious to be called a _smile_. "We eloped to Canada."

"Oh my god, Stiles, just once-" Stilinski seemed to give up on getting straight answers and let go of Stiles' hoodie to point him toward the kitchen. "You go make coffee. Then I will make you talk."

Miming zipping his mouth closed, Stiles turned to lead the way. The sheriff hesitated, looking back at where Derek lurked uncertainly in the doorway. He had never felt so skittish and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, squared his shoulders, with Stiles' voice laughing in his head about first impressions. The sheriff's first impressions of Derek Hale were literally years old at this point, that ship had long ago sailed, but this was certainly a new-impression point.

"What about you?" Stilinski asked. "You're going to just nod and tell me you're fine if I ask, too, huh?"

That was unexpected and Derek just nodded. "I heal better," he said. "It's okay."

"Yeah, but are you _alright_?" The sheriff asked, surprisingly sincere. "That's an entirely different question."

"I'm..." Derek stalled out. Stilinski wouldn't notice a lie. But Derek wasn't sure that it was one.

"He's fine too," said Stiles from the kitchen. "I already had to kick his ass about that this morning."

The sheriff frowned between them. "That kicking-his-ass thing would actually imply the _opposite_ of fine, Stiles..."

Derek managed a lopsided grin and a shrug. "I'm pretty much used to it at this point," he said.

"See? Werewolves are trainable," chimed in Stiles, once again out of sight. Derek blinked.

"What the hell, Stiles!" he called back. There was a lengthy, dangerous quiet.

Then Stiles replied, "Science, Derek."

Derek swore and broke off with enough of a guilty mind that he probably blushed. The sheriff looked on, judging the hell out of Derek he just could tell, and then shook his head. He waved Derek toward the kitchen, catching his shoulder to make sure he went.

"Glad to know you're okay then," he said. Derek nodded.

"Thanks to Stiles," he said, not really thinking about it. The sheriff stopped him, hand at the nape of his neck to keep Derek from ignoring him. He stood close at Derek's shoulder, making him more nervous than he would admit.

"Thanks to Stiles?" Stilinski echoed. "Have you met my son? The boy who told me last weekend he pissed off some werewolf alpha by quoting _Monty Python_?"

Derek grimaced as he realized the sheriff had a point. That did sound suspicious. He shrugged it off. "Don't underestimate the scrawny one with the smart mouth," he said.

Stiles' father still studied him from up close. Then he nodded. "Yep, I guess you've met him." He clapped Derek on the shoulder and nodded approvingly. He squeezed just enough to pass off a manly hug. Then, his voice quieter, he added, "And thanks for looking out for him."

Derek nodded, surprised at himself for the warm pride that brought out. It had been different from Stiles, he didn't want to accept it because he knew better, knew he should have done better. But coming from Stiles' dad made Derek feel like he had done something right even if it hadn't been perfect. He couldn't begin to make sense of it, so Derek just stayed quiet. The sheriff waved him on ahead and followed him into the kitchen. Derek caught Stiles grinning at him, smug as he multitasked with the coffee maker, and smiled back.

 

***


	11. Chapter 11

****

 

Derek settled down eventually. He got used to Stiles' dad watching him when he realized the sheriff was watching _Stiles_ with _him_. Whatever the man was looking for he seemed to have found it because he didn't once mention the fact that Stiles was younger, still in school, or the only child of an over-protective-yet-over-worked sheriff. Stiles' dad sat with them in the living room, worried and watching and talking about whatever he could pry out of them. There was no veiled threat in anything the man said. Derek didn't realize how used to decoding warnings he had gotten over the last month until he got frustrated at _not_ hearing them where he expected to. The man was genuinely happy and grateful for the fact that he still had his son.

So when Stiles started asking Derek what was next, and Derek said he had to talk to Scott and the Argents, Sheriff Stilinski was almost visibly brought back down to earth.

"What do you need to do to stay?" he asked Derek.

"Right now I'm not sure if it'll work," said Derek. "But I need to talk to Gerard Argent. Which means I need a room number and whatever name he’s registered under at the home. We can’t just wander in. I'm hoping Scott has it because I don't want to ask Chris." He couldn't even ask Deucalion without tipping the man off to plans that weren't fully formed in his own head yet.

"I thought you couldn't talk to Scott," said the sheriff.

"I can't, not without stirring the waters, but I can't _move_ until I have answers," replied Derek. "So they can just deal with it for a single conversation. It won't hurt them."

His mood changed from anxious to done. He leaned forward over his knees, very carefully not looking at either Stiles or Derek despite the fact that they were both only a few feet away.

"Okay. I'm not asking for specifics. I don't want to know who. No names. But I need to know what's going on," said the sheriff. "I get it's pack territory stuff, but there's something _off_ here."

"Scott's just a threat to the big pack if we go back to him," said Stiles. He was cagey about it, tried to shrug it off and his dad shook his head, not about to let it go. They had managed to keep him in the dark so long and now it was just taunting the man, talking in his living room and trying to maintain the charade that he didn’t need to know the truth.

"Fine, but what do they care about the Argents? This big pack from Canada..."

"It's a family thing," said Derek. He frowned and thought about leaving to let the sheriff corral Stiles on his own; he would have better luck then, and maybe by the time they were done with the long-version of events, Derek would be back with something more concrete than what he had.

"So we're dealing with more Hales?" Stilinski looked to Derek.

"No," insisted Stiles. “We can’t-”

"Then what do they want with the Argents?" asked the sheriff.

"Dad-"

His dad just shook his head. "Stiles. You are stomping all over every instinct I've got, kiddo. I'll take so much, if it'll make things go easier, but I'm going with my gut when it tells me this is bad news."

"Gerard is a problem. I have to figure out how to defuse it," said Derek.

"So this has nothing to do with Chris and Allison?"

"If I can take care of the Gerard problem, yes."

“The alpha wants to make it about them,” added Stiles. “We’re trying to keep them out of it.”

“What is this Gerard problem?” asked the sheriff. Stiles glanced over at Derek for a clue and Derek shook his head; they were not telling the freaking county sheriff that an alpha hellbent on revenge wanted Gerard dead. Stiles took the hint and looked back at his dad, the same blank expression on his face that he would get when they were stuck not answering his questions back in Canada.

It wasn’t a staring contest exactly but it dragged into one of the silences they were all used to from the stilted phone conversations. Stiles stuck with it, very well practiced in being more stubborn than his father. Derek didn’t have that advantage.

“This is stupid,” he decided suddenly. Derek had a month of people messing with his head and sitting in Stiles' living room, like a mockery of some normal, human interaction only proved it. And a traitorous part of his brain wanted real help, wanted a parent to make the decisions for him, wanted someone else to worry about protecting them. He wanted advice from someone he could trust, and if he couldn’t trust Stiles’ dad, Derek’s life was more screwed over than he gave it credit for. He looked to Stiles, feeling like he needed permission. “They can't monitor our phone calls if they're not fucking _here_. Can we _not_ do this?”

Stiles stared at him, surprise evident. He waved toward his dad. “What? You wanna tell him? Seriously?” he asked. “Let me just point out that’s a very bad plan for so many reasons. I could go find the book with all the codes and the laws and that stuff in it, list them all out for you.”

Derek shrugged. “Problem’s solved if Duke can’t get me out of jail,” he reasoned.

“Of everyone here, Duke’s the only one who can _afford_ the lawyer he’d have to get to get you out of jail,” said Stiles. He looked to his dad, perfectly serious, and pointed a warning finger at him. “And I am right now negating jail time as an option. Derek does not go to jail. I don’t even want him in the drunk tank. Stop thinking about it.”

“Start explaining what the hell this is about or I’ll put him in there myself just to piss you off,” returned the sheriff. “Then you’ll have twenty-four hours without Duke, whoever that is.”

“No,” countered Stiles. “I’ll have twenty-four hours of being up to my eyeballs in alphas because if they can’t get to him they’re gonna get to me, and there is no part of me that finds that idea appealing. No.”

The sheriff fisted his hands in his hair rather than around his son’s neck; Derek was guessing he knew the feeling. He knew, too, that if it all went sideways on him, he could run faster than Stiles’ father. He watched the man for a long moment, weighing it out.

“They want me to kill Gerard,” he finally said, his tone careful and guarded. The sheriff looked up at him, the frustration gone, replaced by a protective anger. Stiles shifted just enough that he leaned to more easily put himself between his father and Derek.

“Gerard caused the fire, Dad. The one you’ve been working on for years. Gerard and his guys coordinated it. And before that, they wiped out Duke’s pack,” he said. “And Deucalion thinks if Derek gets rid of Gerard, it’ll solve everything and Derek’s going to be his best buddy or something afterward.”

Seeing the question on the cop’s face, Derek cut in, “He’s an alpha. He was the reason the darach came here, so trust us when we tell you he’s bad news. He’s backed by a large pack, which makes him stronger.”

“The darach?” Stilinski’s run in with the monster gave him something to associate with, some context to the notion of alphas being something stronger than Derek or Scott. Stiles pounced.

“Yeah, and she had to help Scott and Derek kick this guy’s ass last time. We don't have her this time,” said Stiles. “We don’t _want_ her, but the point is we’ve been in over our heads for a month with this guy and this is the only thing he’s told us he wants.”

“Stiles! You’re talking about pre-meditated-”

“I’m talking about getting to come home!” argued Stiles. “What are we supposed to do? Tell him no, he wasted his time, and get our asses dragged back over the border? He has a _pack_ , Dad. Think like a gang, only with guns _and_ claws.”

That quieted the sheriff. “How many?” he asked. Derek shook his head.

“My best guess is twenty,” he said. He nodded toward Stiles. “Counting us.”

“Just to put this out there, that’s more friends than Scott and I have combined,” said Stiles. “Duke wins the numbers game, even if Scott is an alpha.”

“Duke was an alpha before I was born,” added Derek. “He knew my mother. Seems to think I’m screwing up her legacy and need to step-up. Incidentally, he’s not that far from _psycho_. Strength plus questionable grasp on reality.”

Derek didn’t know why he was bothering suddenly. He had just laid out every reason he had for doing exactly what Deucalion wanted. It was safer. But he didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction. He didn’t want to risk losing. And Derek didn’t want to risk the soul-stripping pain of losing pack again, even if it was Gerard. It could hurt just as badly as Boyd’s death and Derek was tired of hurting. He had a better idea now of what it felt like to _not_ hurt all the time and he didn’t want to risk going back to that.

The sheriff rattled off a few rushed ideas, far reaches that they all knew wouldn't work.

"Then we'll just leave," he said. "Get in the car and drive. Vacation. For a month..."

"Nope," said Stiles. "They can track us."

"Come on..."

Derek cringed as Stiles shrugged out of his jacket and shoved his shirt sleeve up to his shoulder.

"Look. You can see what they did now..." Stiles said.

His dad _was_ looking and had all but tuned Stiles out as he stared at the mostly healed burn. He reached over and caught his son's arm, careful and skittish, like he didn't believe what he was seeing. His thumb brushed over the name and he looked up at Derek, accusing.

"He's not a wolf," said Derek, quiet. "He's in the pack because of me."

"Yeah," said Stiles. His tone said he wasn't bothered, but his heart rate told a different story. He looked between them and tried to draw his dad back out. "It's like a _return if found_ thing. At least that's what Braeden told me."

Derek nodded absently, shrugged. He wasn't going to point out that Braeden's name was on Kenny's shoulder because she brought him in as hers. The r _eturn if found_ story was safer. Stiles tugged the sheriff's attention away and pointed again to the scar.

"But see the line across the paw? They stuck this tracker in there, then cauterized it. No stitches to worry about. Wolves heal right over it and the tracker stays in," he said. If Deucalion had any notion at all of how much Braeden had helped-without-helping over the past month, Derek figured the woman would be dead in short order. He listened, watched as Stiles held up a hand to show the size of the tracker he was rambling about, fingers held apart about half an inch.

"I looked up the tracker when I got the laptop. This thing is fancy, GPS tech programmed on this little piece of bioware. And it works. It's not the pet-chips."

There was a slowly settling horror on the sheriff's face. Stiles tugged his sleeve down. "So we can't just leave. It just makes them chase. Like the little bunny at the greyhound races..."

The sheriff did not appreciate the visual. He scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands and scowled at the ground for a long time.

“So what you’re telling me is that there’s another monster in the territory and the only way it’s leaving is with Gerard’s head on a spike?” asked the sheriff after the quiet. Derek nodded, tired. Stiles was still in his space, their knees touching, which Derek let himself believe was necessary to breathing just then. Stiles could pull tension and stress like Derek could pull pain.

“And as a side bonus, Gerard is a monster in the territory, too,” said Stiles. “And it would be doing everybody a favor to get rid of him. Except for the whole Murder One category.” Stiles seemed to have forgotten who his dad was and even Derek looked at him funny for it. Stiles looked back. “What? It’s true.”

“You are dancing all over the gray area, kid,” said Stilinski, just barely not growling. “ _My_ kid isn’t participating in a premeditated murder, you got it?” He looked from Stiles to Derek. “And neither are you.”

Derek met the glare with a nod, not about to argue. “He's a sick old man who's going to spend the rest of his life bleeding black and never healing. That's enough. So putting him out of his misery wasn’t exactly on my bucket list,” he said. “I just haven’t figured out a way around it.”

“‘Cause there isn’t one,” said Stiles. “We do this and Deucalion backs off, or we don’t, and we go back, and he tries again later. He just spent all day yesterday joyfully reminding us of how fucked we are.”

“Knock it off, Stiles-”

“Then help! What do you do when you’ve got all the evidence stacked up that says you’re gonna lose?”

The sheriff stared at Stiles, the frustration and concern creeping back and adding to the anger. Derek slouched a little heavier into the couch. “I can’t do anything until I talk to Gerard,” he said. “I won’t do anything.”

“Damn right you won't,” said Stilinski. “Not with my kid mixed up in it.”

Stiles’ attention cut back to his dad, like he suddenly realized where the problem was. "I stay with him if he goes," he said. And that’s when Derek suddenly realized he was going to need to _run_ soon. Stiles leaned a little more, so he stayed on the couch to wait it out. He couldn’t bring himself to look up at either of them, though.

"Excuse the hell out of me?" asked the sheriff.

"Nobody else will. Him and me work good together on our own. If I can't get my family to help him, I'll go with his pack."

"I _can't_ help, Stiles..."

"Yeah, and I get it. I can't either. But we can at least stay out of the way."

There was a long quiet, the sheriff at a loss. He was still thinking it all over, but he didn’t have any answers to offer up. Nobody else would, either, and Derek was back to the drawing board, just him and Stiles to get themselves out of it.

"It’s only been a month. You'd choose them over Scott?" the sheriff asked finally. “Over your home, your life?”

Stiles shook his head like his dad was missing the point. "I'm not _choosing_ anything. It's the only option on the table."

Derek stayed quiet, his attention on the far wall by the window. Stiles was right. But Derek wasn’t rolling over on this one unless he had to. And he wasn’t convinced of that yet.

 

***


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I promised this would be up HOURS ago and then the benefactor stuff distracted me... I expect this fic to be posted by the end of the weekend though! The LAST of the set will get started posting too.
> 
> \--------

The only way they got out of the house without a fight - a smart man listened when the sheriff of the county threatened handcuffs to keep them indoors - was to send Stiles’ dad to go talk to Melissa for them while they took care of the “other stuff” they had to do. He could sound her out about getting the trackers out and Duke’s crew wouldn’t be worried about Derek jumping teams again. It was the only middle ground Stiles would give. In the interests of keeping the peace, the sheriff accepted their promise to be back that night and they went their separate ways for the afternoon. They left the jeep in the driveway just so his dad would believe them.

Later, Derek raised an eyebrow at the place Stiles had told him to stop off at before they went to meet Scott. "You know, most _babies_ have a better handle on object permanence than you do lately."

"Says the guy who used to live in a burned out house," returned Stiles with the same morbidity. "Just freakin pull over and wait, man."

Derek parked at the curb beside the fenced in cemetery. He didn't wait, though. When Stiles got to the sidewalk, he had a Derek-shaped shadow. Stiles was fidgety and anxious as he walked to his mother's grave. Derek held back a respectable distance when he saw the headstone and left Stiles to have his chat with his mom. He crouched at the gravesite, idly tugged weeds away from the marble as he updated her on what had been missed over the past month.

Stiles was quiet, just above a whisper as he worked through things that had been weighing on him about being gone from his hometown and his dad. It wasn't like a headstone could talk back, but Derek knew well enough that there were things the sheriff wasn't going to be able to understand, and he knew that talking to a place-holder of his own mom sometimes made up for those moments. Being in that burned out house sometimes did it too. So he kept silent and out of the way, watching the cemetery for unwanted company and making sure Stiles had a safe place to quiet his mind. He glanced over at Derek a few times, making sure he hadn't left probably, but Stiles kept talking to his mom. Derek didn't listen, tried to think instead on what he had waiting for him for the rest of the day. It was going to be a long one, completely not fun for anyone.

The cemetery was a surprisingly relaxing place, Derek realized absently. It stayed quiet in the cold, no rain but enough of a breeze that the trees were the only things talking other than Stiles. Finally Stiles had cleaned the area around the headstone and said his goodbyes. He walked toward Derek looking a little lighter, less angry.

"Ready to go?" he asked. Derek nodded and fell into step beside him. Their shoulders brushed and Derek pulled his hand out of his pocket. Stiles caught it a heartbeat later, lacing their fingers and hanging on until they got back to the truck.

 

***

 

They met Scott at the crappy pizza place with the game room. It was public, it was lunch time, there were screaming kids everywhere. No supernatural being with enhanced hearing would be within fifty yards of the place. So Scott and Derek cramped into a booth with Stiles at the back of it. Isaac was wandering on watch, but Derek had learned his lesson with the sheriff; he didn’t tell them who they were watching for. They could figure it out on their own but he wasn’t going to risk telling them out loud. Nor did he tell Scott where they had been or why they were back. Stiles was perfecting his blank-face by the second with all the use he was getting out of it.

“I don’t get it,” said Scott. Stiles shook his head, his eyes rolling dangerously.

“Neither do we,” he said. “But that’s what we’ve got.”

“What do you need to talk to Gerard about?” Scott asked. Derek bristled slightly, letting his frustration eek out.

“It’s a pack matter,” he said. Stiles elbowed him hard in the ribs and Scott looked back at them, clueless.

“The new pack?” Scott asked. He didn’t trust the “new pack” idea any more than Stiles did. Derek took a careful breath, reminding himself that there was too much he didn’t know for him to be able to expect any better from Scott. Stiles caught the noise and shoved his knee a little.

“Lemme talk to Scott,” he said. He nodded back toward the food bar. “Go get a drink or something.”

With a huff of dry amusement, Derek arched an eyebrow at him. “Did you seriously just say that?”

Again with the eyeroll. Derek shook his head. “Yes, dear,” he muttered. Stiles smirked at him and waggled his eyebrows like a jerk. Derek was in a weird place, so he didn’t argue, instead went off in search of a drink. The food court of the fun-house was off around a corner but just enough in sight that Derek didn’t worry about leaving the room to get there. Besides, Stiles was with Scott and they would be fine. He did order a drink just because he wanted the excuse to pay for something on his own for the first time in a month. As he handed over the cash, he noticed a familiar presence not far off his shoulder. Kenny sat down at the bar, the both of them safely out of each other’s easy reach.

“How’s the food here?” the man asked. Derek shrugged and decided he had no reason to ignore the alpha’s pet-hunter when being rude would bring more attention than having a conversation.

“Cardboard,” he said. “With a healthy serving of grease, if that’s your thing.”

Kenny decided not to chance the food and stuck to a soda the same as Derek. He nodded back toward where Stiles sat with Scott.

“You picked up a third-wheel,” he observed. Derek dismissed the observation.

“He wasn’t here when we got here. So now I’m over here,” he said. “Stiles is talking to Scott. Everybody’s happy.”

“Huh,” was all Kenny said to the lie. Derek looked around but didn’t see any of the others. It was too loud for the alphas to bother with it when Kenny could keep visual tabs on them just fine. Derek nodded the man’s attention out at the game room behind them.

“Aren’t you a little old to be here on your own?” he asked, smug. Kenny mocked him for it.

“Next time you want to think you’re getting away with something, get away with it at Hooters or some place less awkward then,” he said. Derek considered it and then ignored the suggestion. Even if there was a Hooters in town, he would never get Scott and Stiles to focus, let alone leave. Instead of worry about Kenny’s existence, Derek sent Stiles a text to let him know they were being tailed. A few minutes later, Stiles showed up. Stealing some of Derek’s soda, he ushered him off the barstool. He tossed off a “Bye...” as he cuffed Kenny in the back of the head when they left. Derek swallowed back a smile and hurried Stiles out of the place. When they were outside, he scanned the parking lot and spotted the familiar car with the BC plates, nodded to point them out to Stiles. He only glanced at it to be sure it was nowhere near the Toyota.

“Scott’s pissed,” he reported when they were in the truck. Derek frowned at him. “So he’s not going to help.”

“About what? I just want a damn room number,” said Derek. Stiles looked like he wanted to kick something but he fought with the seatbelt instead.

“Same as Dad,” he said, reluctant. “They think we’re taking sides. Scott’s protecting Allison.”

“Screw it,” said Derek. He was more aggressive leaving the parking lot than traffic called for but it made him feel better. “Then we’ll go talk to Allison.”

 

***

 

When nobody answered their polite knocking, the last thing Derek expected was to see Stiles break out a lock pick set and start to work on the Argents’ front door. He immediately checked the hall to be sure there were no witnesses. A camera monitored from the end and Derek leaned against the wall beside the door to block Stiles from view.

“What are you doing?” he asked through a casually clenched jaw.

“I’m _not_ standing around in the hall waiting for Kenny and Chuck to catch up,” said Stiles. “It’s Allison. She’ll be okay with it when we explain.”

“We’ve tried that theory twice now,” Derek pointed out. “Scott and your dad are not okay with it. They’re really not going to be okay with a little B&E.”

“I stole the lock picks from Dad,” Stiles added helpfully. The door _snicked_ open just to accent his words.

“Oh my god I’m gonna kill you,” muttered Derek. Still, he followed Stiles into the apartment. When the door was closed, he spoke normally, more confident away from the threat of passerby-witnesses or stalking-alphas. “But first you call her and figure out where she is. I don’t want to sit waiting around in here. I want to get it over with.”

“Relax, it’s not gonna be a problem...”

“Stiles, it’s-”’ Derek broke off as he heard movement in the apartment. Stiles took the cue for quiet and hung back by the door and the easy escape. Derek probably should have just left rather than get involved in whatever was stalking the Argents other than himself and Stiles. His concern was the alphas dragging Allison into things and really screwing everything up, so Derek wasn’t leaving until he knew the noise belonged there.

Somehow Derek wasn’t expecting it when he rounded the corner into the hallway and came face to face with Chris Argent. After the month he had survived, Derek’s first response to the threat of a hunter was a snarl and claws. Chris had the advantage though and, before Derek could move, the man had caught a handful of hair at the back of his neck and shoved a Desert Eagle against his exposed throat.

“You’ve got three seconds to come up with a damn good reason for breaking into my home,” Chris warned. He was angry and armed and Derek backed down to the scenario he had gotten too used to. He wasn’t dealing with an alpha maybe but he knew when not to pick fights with a hunter. That’s when Stiles showed up, jumping back as he rounded the corner to the scene.

“Woah! Mr. Argent, no!” He held his arms as a flailing shield in front of his face. Argent looked over at him, surprised. That didn’t make the gun stop trying to puncture Derek’s throat but it was enough to stall the trigger being pulled.

“Stiles?” Chris asked. “What the hell- does your dad know you’re back in town? Where have you-”

“Yeah, my dad knows, we just came from there, so could you please not with the gun? That would be super...” Stiles straightened up again, his arms cautiously lowering just enough to placate the hunter.

“You broke into my home, Stiles,” said Chris. His attention returned to Derek. “With a werewolf.”

“We just wanna talk to Allison for a minute,” said Stiles quickly. “It’s no big deal. I just didn’t want to wait in the hall for her... I’ve been over here before so I didn’t think it was gonna be a problem...”

“What part of _you broke into my home_ isn’t computing for you?” Chris paused and glanced over at Stiles. His eyes narrowed. “Are those _lockpicks_?”

“Uhm..." Stiles stared at the small pouch in his hand. "Well, I could say no and be lying or you could just refer back to the earlier point about the B&E..."

Chris backed off from Derek then, which made it a lot easier for him to keep from fighting back. The problem suddenly presented was Chris Argent angling the gun toward Stiles. Stiles froze up as Derek stopped breathing for a second.

"Nononono, no virgin sacrifices for this project. That is the exact opposite of anything remotely useful..." He stammered out.

Chris raised an eyebrow. "The virgins are safe. You two on the other hand-"

Stiles' hand raised up to make a point in argument. He pointed to himself while he was at it. "Virgin! I'm safe. Gun goes away."

"Allison said you _eloped_ a month ago," said Chris.

"I made one joke!" Stiles argued. "I didn't start the rumors."

"He's seventeen. Why the hell are you keeping track of his sex life?" Derek asked the hunter. He was half taunting to draw attention back and half annoyed. It at least worked to annoy Chris and point out that he had an actual gun drawn on a kid. He lowered the weapon but he didn't put it away.

"What'd you do to your face?" He nodded toward the scratches along Stiles' jaw.

"Still not a wolf," Stiles said quickly. Chris seemed to settle and kept his distrusting gaze aimed at Derek.

"I ask again. Why did you break into my house?"

"I need to talk to Gerard," said Derek. "I just want to know how to find him."

Predictably, Chris shook his head. "No."

"Not to be cliche, but this is one of those life-or-death things," said Stiles. "We just need a room number so we can get on the guest-list."

"And the name he's under," added Derek. "Since he's not registered under his."

"There's a reason for that," said Chris. "It all stays. You don't even need to talk to him on the phone."

Stiles gaped at him. "What part of _life-or-death_ are you not getting?"

"You've been gone for a month and my father's been locked up for six. There is no way he has _any_ bearing on your lives," said Chris. He pointed toward the front door. "Out."

"But he does, damnit-" Stiles tried to argue but the hunter wasn't going to listen to him. Derek got physically between them, his back to Chris as he brought himself into a staring match with Stiles.

"Leave it alone," he said. Stiles didn't want to back down but he did. He kept an eye on Chris over Derek's shoulder, stepped aside to let Derek by.

"This is stupid," he complained, loud as he moved to the door. "We just want to talk to the guy."

"Too bad," replied Chris. "That is not happening."

"Just for the record, we asked for help," Stiles said. He stopped at the door and stared at Chris. "We've asked everybody."

The hunter raised an eyebrow and held the door edge to start herding Stiles out with the slow closing swing. "Did you ask this _everybody_ before or after breaking into their house?"

Derek didn't want to get into it. He reached out and caught Stiles' hood to tug him away from the Argent's door. "We're on our own," he said.

"Yeah, I guess," said Stiles. He shot another dirty glance at Chris as the man disappeared. "There's Duke."

At the elevator, Derek looked over at him. "Duke?"

Stiles nodded. "If he wants it so bad, he can do the hard part," he said. He met Derek's gaze. "What do you need to talk to Gerard about anyway?"

Shaking his head, Derek shrugged. "Not important now."

"What was it?" Stiles insisted.

"I don't know," Derek said finally. "I was just hoping for a reason not to listen."

"Right. Letting him pick a fight would be easier," said Stiles. "Smarter."

“Exactly.” Derek nodded. So If Deucalion wanted it to happen, he would just have to set it up.

 

****


	13. Chapter 13

There was a problem finding parking at the sheriff's house. Which meant there was a problem keeping Stiles in the car long enough for the vehicle to stop. Derek trapped the jeep in the driveway, angled just enough behind a second car that Derek recognized to be his uncle's, and didn't bother fighting to get the keys out so he could catch up with him. Stiles slammed through the front door yelling for his dad.

"Calm down, boy. For gods sake, the dramatics," came Deucalion's voice. Stiles derailed to the living room, Derek at his heels. He visibly relaxed when he found his dad standing by the fireplace. The sheriff looked angry, his face flushed and the meanest expression Derek had ever seen on the man. It gave him a good comparison to the man's attitude earlier that day. The sheriff hadn't been mad at Derek at all. He was mad now. Mad and penned in by three wolves and a rogue hunter. And Peter, lurking across the room. He acknowledged Derek with a nod but otherwise looked unconcerned with the situation Derek had come to find.

"What happened to the phone call?" Derek asked. Deucalion shrugged.

"I was tired of waiting. It isn't my strong suit and we have a deadline," said the alpha.

"We're aware of the deadline," said Derek. Stiles moved to block easy access to his dad.

"And what was your conclusion among the day's activities?" Deucalion asked.

"We have shit for backup," said Stiles. He thankfully had his back to Peter or there could have been trouble. "So I guess that leaves you."

"Well, we're apparently more favorable than the shit," said Deucalion, amused. "That's an improvement."

"Not really," said Derek. "You're leaving."

"When you answer my question," said Deucalion with a nod.

"You had a plan. If you can make it happen, fine," said Derek. He ignored the look on the sheriff's face. He would deal with that problem later. It was bad enough that Peter was there if he had really been working with Stiles' dad to get them home; so much could go wrong.

" _If_ we can make it happen?" Fisher was insulted. Deucalion looked amused. There was a new tension as Fisher edged around the corner of the couch to square off with Derek. He had a box of cigarettes that he had been tapping since Derek had walked in the room - probably longer to annoy the sheriff's nerves- and shook one out.

"You make it sound like there's a question about it," he said.

"Don't smoke in the house," Stiles interrupted from across the room. Peter wasn't the only one who rolled his eyes at Stiles' stubborn challenge. Tessa laughed at him. Duke arched an amused eyebrow. Fisher glanced back briefly, not at all bothered by the demand for manners. Cigarette in his mouth, he started messing with his lighter, taunting Stiles by not smoking rather than provoking him. He still dealt with Derek, waiting on an answer.

" _If_ you can accomplish what you say you can, fine," Derek repeated. "I can't even get in to talk to him. So good luck."

Fisher clicked the lighter open and toyed with the flame, waving it between them like he had time and time again back at Deucalion's office. Derek tracked it closely, careful to keep clear of it without backing down.

"Duke says you're an asset. All I'm hearing and seeing are liabilities," said Fisher. "If you can't pull your weight, why are we keeping you and yours around? I mean, hell, history repeats itself all the time."

Combined with the lighter in his face, the man's words held a real threat. Derek stopped tracking the flame and turned a sharp blue eyed glare on the alpha beyond it. Fisher lit his cig and his eyes flashed red.

"Fisher, outside," said Deucalion. The leader of the organized alphas stood then. "Keep your phone on," he told Derek. "We'll deal with this later then."

The sheriff looked like he had something to say to that but thankfully didn't. That might have been because Stiles stepped back and very intentionally landed on his dad's foot as a hint. Stilinski shut his mouth and glowered at Fisher as he left. Deucalion waved the others out, only Kenny hanging back at the door.

"Thank you for your time, Sheriff," Deucalion said. "It has been an enlightening afternoon, I think."

"You've got that right," the man agreed. Stiles looked over at him, looking like he wanted to explode from sheer frustration that his father would provoke the werewolf. Somewhat amused, Deucalion waved for Peter to stay and for Stiles and Derek to see him outside. They did, as much to be sure he left as to do as they were told.

"When I call, I expect an answer," he told them when they were outside. "And cooperation please, Stiles."

"This is me, cooperating," said Stiles. His tone said annoyance but he nodded.

"No more trips to meet with Scott," Deucalion said. "You're staying here tonight. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Your father will determine that I think."

"He's not part of it," said Stiles.

"He knows an awful lot for a man not involved," said Deucalion mildly. "As does Peter. So we'll just keep all the fragile eggs in one basket." Stiles went quiet and Derek couldn't come up with a non threatening explanation for the alpha’s decision.

"It's on you, gentlemen. We'll get you as far as we can, Derek. If you keep throwing walls up, you'll get nowhere, aside from perhaps a hospital. I will act in the best interests of the pack, and that includes you."

"It mostly includes your own interests," said Stiles.

"I didn't think that was in question," replied Deucalion. Stiles nodded.

"So are we on the same page, then?" Deucalion asked. "No more stalling, no more evasions. We finish Talia's business with the Argents?"

"We finish it with Gerard Argent," said Stiles. Derek glanced at him, brow raised, but he only nodded.

"Gerard Argent only," he added. "If you can get him out, fine."

"You keep saying _if_ ," said Deucalion. "Which makes me think you've disrupted the plan."

Derek looked to Stiles. He saw the same shade of concern there. They probably had.

"I went to Chris and asked to talk to Gerard. I only asked to _talk_. But I've been gone for a month. He didn't want to help," said Derek. "And he'll probably be waiting for me to do something now."

"Then I suppose you should," said Deucalion, his anger kept in check. "There's two of you. Peter shows great willingness toward anything against the Argents. Figure out how to keep Chris Argent from interfering and we'll work it out. The second the man steps into my sights, he is forfeit."

"Got it," said Stiles. Derek gave his own affirmative.

"No more _ifs_ , Derek." The alpha let himself into the waiting car then. A moment later he and his entourage disappeared around a corner.

"So that's it?" Stiles asked in the quiet after they were gone. "We're doing this thing."

Derek nodded. "I am. You're helping to keep your dad and Chris and Scott away."

Stiles raised an eyebrow at the quick redirect. "What? You got something?"

Derek nodded. "So far, just you."

Stiles broke into a grin. "You gonna complain about it?"

In response, Derek shook his head, and was all but pounced on in the driveway. Stiles started rattling off "classic" distraction hoaxes and how to set one up for Scott and Chris. Derek would go along with the winning scheme; his mind was too busy working out the problem that came after.

Gerard was the one that worried him. It wasn't impossible. It was even necessary. Derek just didn't _want_ to do it. But he would. He might have lost his pack, but he had been an alpha once; the wiring changed and couldn't go back. Derek might not be as strong, but he could still do what needed done. He just had to cross the line holding him back.

 

 

***

 


	14. Chapter 14

When they got back in the house, Peter and the sheriff were arguing about motive, with the sheriff as one pissed-off instigator. Stiles wanted to jump right in and would have happily strangled Peter without the first thought to the still-healing slashes across his ribs. To keep Stiles from prying him loose, Derek snuck his hands in the hoodie-jacket pockets and wrapped his arms around him from behind.

"Peter's not going to hurt him," he said, quiet so they didn't derail the argument. Derek had been where the sheriff was trying to climb out of far too recently to shut the man down. Peter wasn't actually a threat if he would drag his ass all the way to Canada for them. So they stood back as the sheriff all but yelled at Peter for helping the wrong team and Peter calmly- however obviously annoyed - informed the sheriff how screwed they were if he didn't get on board.

"What the hell does that even mean?" The sheriff ranted and took a step toward him. "I let you track them down but I didn't sign on to let you drag my kid into a vendetta. No."

Peter waved toward the door, off behind where Derek and Stiles stood. "I'm not the one that started this."

"No, you're the one who brought those assholes to my door and now you're telling me to keep my mouth shut so they don't see you playing both sides," returned Stilinski.

Peter's lip curled as he glared at the sheriff. "You ungrateful-"

"Grateful for what? You're working with them, you're camped out in my house now, until they say otherwise. And I can't kick you out because it'll blow your cover?"

"You're a cop! How is that hard for you?"

"That's my kid!" The sheriff pointed at Stiles. "That's how. This should be done and over with!"

"Dad!" Stiles wasn't going to stay out of it but he didn't shrug Derek off. "It's okay-"

"Stiles, you're a seventeen year old, spastic klutz of a human being running with... _werewolves_." The Sheriff held up a hand when his son started to protest. "You've been so _hung up_ on a girl for the last ten years that I have never seen you _out_ with anyone other than Scott. You stopped going to Heather's years ago _just in case_ Lydia noticed you. School and Scott. That's it. That's just... That's how you _work_ , son. You put yourself in a box with the internet and play games and you're just a _little_ out of touch with anything outside of that box, kiddo. So you can't tell me now that you have a clue what you're doing with murderers and... And fanatics. It's not in your skillset and you shouldn't still be stuck dealing with these people."

"Yeah but I _am_ ," said Stiles, determination in his tone. Derek loosened his hold and Stiles clamped around his wrist to keep him from moving away. "I've had weeks of the psychos and I want to stay home. So if you think I was _hung up_ on Lydia then you know I'm not giving up on getting Derek out of this."

Stilinski shook his head. "It has _nothing_ to do with you," he said. "It has to do with that man who just left working with that one right there-" the sheriff pointed at Peter - "Who just wants revenge."

"No!" said Peter, growly. The sheriff looked over at him, just as angry.

"Yes! You want this. You have every reason to let Derek fight your battles. And every reason to let Deucalion force him into it," said Stilinski. "You're singing a very different tune now than the one you were on last week when you told me you knew where they were. So you can forget about getting my help on a course that's going to put my kid in the ground for a loss that already happened to your family."

"Sheriff... They knew where Stiles and I were all day," Derek interrupted. "So why do _you_ think they showed up here to see you when they knew Stiles wasn't here?"

That caught the sheriff's attention through his anger and he almost visibly deflated. His attention went from glaring at Derek to staring at Stiles as it sunk in. Deucalion sitting in the sheriff's living room had less to do with his cooperation than it did Stiles'; he had a small family just as easily lost.

"It's not about getting your help, Dad," said Stiles, voice small. "They don't need it."

The sheriff nodded, having fully caught on to how he suddenly fit in the scenario now that Stiles was back in town.

"We're here but it hasn't changed anything," said Derek. "We're not done yet."

"And now I'm the insurance policy to see it gets done," the sheriff said, resigned. Well aware of how the point was hitting Stiles, Derek didn't say anything.

"Which is why, they,-" Peter gestured at Stiles and Derek, "-need you in their corner. Not as the town sheriff, but as the boy's father. And, incidentally, why it'll screw over everyone if I'm thrown to the wolves because you think I don't know which side I'm on."

Even Derek looked at his uncle critically when it came to which side the man was on, but he didn't want to get into it. "We just need you to be safe. That's all. Just stay safe.

Stiles nodded quick agreement. "Just stay home and don't piss off Duke."

The sheriff gave a huff of bitter amusement. "That's a little like the pot handing out advice to the kettle."

"Yeah, but the pot has more practice," said Stiles. "At least, with psycho werewolves."

His dad nodded. "Yeah, I get it," he said. He looked from Stiles to Derek. "But don't expect me to sit here and let my kid pull my weight. You need something, you have my help."

"And mine," added Peter, stubborn and looking pointedly to the sheriff to drive it home. Stilinski didn't look convinced but he nodded.

"So there's four of us," he said. "What do we do about this?"

"I don't know about the rest of you," said Peter. "But I'm ordering a damn pizza and having a drink." He looked between the two Stilinskis. "Please tell me you have alcohol in this house."

Stilinski looked a little smug. "Not since last month."

That made Stiles happy and he relaxed, finally let Derek have his arm back. "Just pizza then," said Derek.

 

***

 

So they had a pizza delivered. Everything was fine until it actually showed up, because with the pizza delivery came Melissa McCall. Stiles effectively lost his shit when he opened the door and saw her standing next to the guy from the Pizza Hat. It was kind of funny, in a morbid sort of way that required Derek ignore all context of their situation. He knew why Stiles stood at his dad’s shoulder, his brow furrowed and mouth working like he was chewing on words he would rather be spewing. Melissa smiled politely at the delivery kid - who had to be wondering why his arrival had gathered a _crowd_ \- and made faces back at Stiles when the sheriff paid the kid. Then the sheriff gave Stiles the pizza in the hopes he would take the hint, but he still stared at Melissa in silent efforts at communicating a very important message that she was very definitely ignoring. Derek hung back and leaned against the wall until Stiles shoved the pizza at him and just barely managed to not chase the delivery guy out the door in his hurry to close it. Then the self-imposed gag order expired.

“You need to not be here. Like, really, really, really need to not be here,” Stiles informed Melissa. “You can’t be here.”

“I’m fine being here,” said Melissa. She made a move like she was going to get near an agitated Stiles and Derek was suddenly looking for some place to put a pizza to keep it from hitting the floor if he had to step in to keep Stiles from... reacting. He was too quick to fight lately and he was on a whole new level of worried since she had appeared on the doorstep. Peter showed up when he heard Melissa’s voice and Derek gave him the pizzas to babysit.

“You didn’t bring Scott, right?” Derek asked. Melissa looked over at him, looking him up and down like she was expecting him to look as rough as Stiles did. Then she shook her head.

“That doesn’t change anything,” insisted Stiles. He seemed to have it under control when he let her catch him carefully by the arm, just so he could usher her toward the door. “You need to go home.”

“Stiles...”

“No. Okay. What part of _can’t be here_ aren’t you getting? Leave!” He just barely kept from shouting and pointed at the door in case she was still not getting it. Derek stared, surprised and not sure if he should intervene because Melissa still had her hand at Stiles’ elbow. She was trying to get him to calm down and look at her instead of direct her toward the door.

“Stiles!”

“What!” He did shout that time, still very close. She blinked at him and then narrowed her eyes, pulling the kind of face only a mother could pull and Derek realized he didn’t really miss that perk to having family around. The lecture was stalled out by the sudden look of surprise on Stiles’ face and he tried to back out of it. “Okay. That was rude. But still, Mrs. M, you need to leave now. Please...”

Melissa shook her head. “Stiles, honey, if you think I’m leaving without checking you over first, guess again. Your dad told me about your arm-”

“But if they find you here...” Stiles broke off, like he couldn’t bring himself to even finish the thought. Instead he shifted a glare that was equal parts fear, anger and pleading to his father. “Dad, you have to make her leave. We already know they’re going to be watching the house. She’s with Scott, they’re just gonna get pissed- it’s not safe...”

Melissa reached up and carefully took Stiles’ face in her hands to make him look down at her. “Stiles, if they’ve been watching your dad, my showing up here unannounced isn’t going to surprise them. Either he’s been at my place or we’ve been here, practically since Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, but that was before they declared Scott off-limits, and before we got back here, with them actually here shoving goddamn lighters in people’s faces in Dad’s house-”

“Calm down before you make yourself sick,” Melissa said. Derek had already crept forward, not crowding Stiles’ space but making sure he could see him.

“It’s okay, Stiles,” he added in. Stiles looked over at him and Melissa backed off a step to give him her attention too. Derek just shook his head. “I’m going to go sit on the porch. It’s a family thing, so it’ll be okay that she’s here.”

“But-” Stiles looked to his dad again for help. “Come on, man. I’m freaking out here. If something happens to her too? I mean, that is just everything I don’t want right now. I can’t deal...”

Stilinski set his hands to his son’s shoulders and kneaded to try to make Stiles catch the hint to relax. He nodded at Derek as he looked to meet Stiles’ eyes. “That’s why he’s going to take care of their territorial pack stuff and hang out on the porch for a few minutes. I want her to make sure that burn’s healing right-”

“Damnit, it is-”

“You’re not a nurse, Derek’s not a nurse-”

“Yeah, but we sorta had one,” said Stiles. He was hedging on that and Derek rolled his eyes.

“Sorta,” said Derek. He nodded toward Melissa as he pulled his jacket on. “And I’ll still trust Scott’s mom over one of Duke’s alphas any day. They know that, that’s the problem, so. I remove the problem. Just relax for ten minutes. It’ll be fine.”

“No,” said Stiles. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not.” Derek took a step toward him to be sure he was actually paying attention instead of just worrying. “I’ll be on the porch until she leaves.”

“Yeah, but dinner-” Stiles was grasping at straws but getting used to the idea. Derek arched an eyebrow at him and nodded toward the kitchen.

“So don’t let Peter eat all the pizza,” he said. Stiles frowned at him but nodded anyway. Derek reached out and caught his wrist, tugging a little to get Stiles grounded and backed a little further away from his panic. He turned his hand in Derek's grip, enough to catch hold of him in return. It seemed to work; Stiles took a breath and squared his shoulders. Catching the door, Derek looked between Stiles and Melissa. “Now go tell her we didn’t elope for godssake.”

After Stiles’ breakdown, Derek figured she would probably believe him this time. He snuck outside then and sat down on the porch steps in the cold. It wasn’t raining, thankfully. It was just going to be a long ten minutes because Stiles’ anxiety was gnawing at Derek’s gut too. That slowly faded and Melissa was at the house for probably close to half an hour, or at least it felt that long. When she walked out, she stooped behind Derek to hug his shoulders. He had known she was there, so she didn’t startle him, but he still hadn’t been expecting that. Melissa gave him a brief smile, like a stranger who was somehow family, and then left to get in her car without a word. Derek stayed on the porch for awhile longer, feeling heavy and grounded with a busy mind.

 

***

 

After Melissa left, Peter and Stilinski spent the evening sniping bitterly at each other, neither one of them happy about Peter being under the sheriff's roof. For the sake of his own sanity, Derek stayed on the front porch, away from the noise. Stiles eventually gave up guarding his dad, since his hovering paranoia was feeding both Stilinski's frustration and Peter's natural tendency to be perpetually insulted. The adults were left to their own bickering and Stiles dropped down on the porch steps with Derek. He wasn’t as shaken up but he was still on edge. Their shoulders brushed and Derek leaned.

"You know what's stupid?" asked Stiles after a long, comfortable quiet. Derek shrugged.

"That Deucalion can't get over himself enough to do his own dirty work and has to have somebody else do it for him," he replied, his mind occupied by non-existent options.

Stiles shut his mouth. After a moment to consider it, he shrugged. "Okay. Well. Not what I was going with, but no less accurate."

One eyebrow arched, Derek patiently waited for the intended punch line. Stiles jerked a thumb back toward the house.

"What's stupid is that a good eighty percent of their problem with each other right now?" he said. "It's not you, not me. Not Duke. Oh no. I'm getting the distinct impression it's because Peter took Mrs. M out on a date that one time."

Barely hiding a grin, Derek glanced back at the house as he heard the sheriff complain at Peter - _"Get your damn shoes off my coffee table."_ to set off Peter's " _But that's what the damn thing is for..._ " - despite the walls between them. There was no way Stiles had heard but the sheriff's voice was still louder than usual.

"Yeah, you're probably not far off," Derek said.

"D'you think if we paid him Duke would take Peter back with him and leave us alone?" Stiles asked. Derek scoffed.

"Don't tempt me."

 

***

 

An hour later they were all in the house. The sheriff was paranoid too, which meant he could only handle going so long without tripping over Stiles to be sure he hadn't disappeared again.  So it was declared a movie night. Because that's what normal people stuck under the same roof do to kill time rather than each other.

Derek didn't pay attention to the movie. He couldn't focus on actors and stories.  He was pretty sure no one did, they just stared at the moving pictures and took it as an excuse to be quiet.  Stiles and his dad had the couch, and rather than crowd into the sheriff's territory, Derek sat on the floor in front of Stiles and leaned back against him.  Even Peter participated, taking over the armchair and nursing an orange juice like a martini.  It felt oddly familiar to Derek. 

The movie had explosions and aliens and Bruce Willis kicking ass.  Derek tuned in every so often. Something caught his attention and he looked over at Peter.  His uncle was watching the movie, completely zoned out on it. But he kept flexing his hands over the end of the armrests, engaging and retracting claws like a cat kneading something soft.  He wasn't ripping or stabbing the furniture, only caught on a loop of reassuring repetitive motion to make himself feel better.  Derek's attention turned to his own hands.

He flexed his fingers a few times, watching the process he usually only felt as a reaction to danger.  It was odd, how little he paid attention to the things that made him different from Stiles, things he knew Stiles paid attention to.  His automatic reaction was foreign to them, because they couldn't do it.  Derek didn't even have to think about it.  In contrast to the sharp claws Derek distracted himself with, he suddenly felt the soft pads of fingers on his skin.  Stiles rubbed at his neck, messed with his hair, a new way found to reassure himself that Derek hadn't gone anywhere. Derek glanced back at him and Stiles stopped, an embarrassed tint hitting his cheeks.  Derek flashed him a grin and settled back a little heavier against Stiles.  His attention returned to his own hands then, to the claws curled harmless in his lap.  He relaxed.

And that's how Derek figured out a way around the problem with Gerard.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... annnnnnd onward to part three... which I'll have up here shortly...


End file.
